Parental Discretion Advised
by her name is erika
Summary: "What if my dad is the villain this town swears he is? What if my mom is an actual witch?" / Or, in which Reed Hellstrom understands who his parents are, post-domestic abuse. For Bria.
1. Prologue

**Parental Discretion Advised  
show:** Young and the Restless  
**central characters:** Reed Hellstrom  
**summary:** "What if my dad is the villain this town swears he is? What if my mom _is_ an actual witch?" / Or, in which Reed Hellstrom understands who his parents are, post-domestic abuse. For Bria.  
**disclaimer:** Nothing you recognize is mine, and everything you don't is. "R.I.P 2 My Youth" is not mine. It belongs to The Neighbourhood and just highlights where Reed is at this point in his life. I don't own Y&R and this is only for entertainment value.  
**notes:** I did not expect it to be this long, but happy reading. If you don't like Reed, please click the back button. I won't hold it against you. I guess, throughout this abuse story, Reed has been glaringly missing in key moments and really, hasn't been able to react to what has happened. This is just an exercise in giving Reed a richer life and filling in the blanks of his thought process, using JT and Victoria – as that vehicle. It's a little different but I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed reading it.

* * *

**PROLOGUE **

Lou Humphries is in many ways, a kid. But he isn't. He knows that the day he meets Chanel Whittaker and actually likes her enough to be exclusive. He's known to mess around. Have fun. Be the goofball in his core group of friends. Last year, he's pretty sure he has an outline of how senior years is going to look like. There are changes. Changes with his people, changes in him.

He meets Chanel last spring when she's new at GC High when she has this brief thing with Reed in between his thing with Kendall. How girls are into his buddy this way, he'll never know. But it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of thing, so he's technically not breaking any guy code rules. When Reed and Steph are voted Cutest Couple in the yearbook long before he leaves for boarding school, it blows his mind because they aren't a thing either. Chanel is gorgeous. Like stupidly gorgeous with long dark hair, freckles placed like God was showing off with a paintbrush. Louis smiles, remembering her deep-set brown eyes and how she's the first girl to not really find him funny. Everyone finds him funny. He's the class clown. Always has been. It's his niche and this one girl doesn't acknowledge it. It's the first time a girl makes him mad enough to ponder it, and shaking him what he does.

In the middle of being mad and annoyed that this girl who has the audacity to curve him and then expose what he wrestles with, Chanel Whittaker becomes his girlfriend. His serious girlfriend. She's an attractive girl, of course, only 5 foot 4 to his nearly 6 feet. But in her little stature is a large attitude and a clear-cut way of expressing herself. She comes from a largely religiously family when she has no belief system. She's religiously ambivalent. She's into all religions and no religion at the same time.

Grandma Ruthie calls his girl a heathen, but then again, his grandmother got this aversion to paying taxes and still does not have a bank account, hides her money in her worn mattress. Grandma blends her love of Cardi B and Tupac with organ tinted old school church hymns while wearing her largest hats to church. _Of course, there's a god, a force, a deity up there or whatever, but I'm not waiting for someone to swoop down from above and bless me, Louie, _Chanel says one day in late March.

He remembers because sunlight touches her hair. Louis also remembers that February day because it's the day he looks into transforming his aptitude for computers and machines into some lifelong, and worthwhile. Walking into the guidance counsellor's office is weird for him, and there's a voice asking about engineering, computer science asking seriously about any and all programs available, internships and even college preparation courses. Lou is doing all this way a renewed energy that leaves me studying during the day, and coding as a computer screen illuminate his face in the dark at night. Last spring, Newman Enterprises goes through a really messed hack to their entire system. Their servers are shot. Data is compromised and e-mails are infiltrated with serious bugs he battles before. Ms. Newman answers the door one morning when he arrives to give Reed a ride to school.

Grandma says to stay out of people's business and mind his. Always mind his. His incarcerated members always remind to not snitch because bad things happen to people who do. He has a feeling that perhaps, Reed's family is the same with loyalty and whatnot, but Ms. Newman is stressed.

Lou does something crazy. He stops, turns around and offers to take a look at the hack. If he can deal with this monster, vanquish it, and then save Reed's family company – even though his best friend isn't about that corporate life – then Lou will know he's not a kid. He's not just a class clown. Lou's serious. Can run diagnostic tests, break apart this hack and put together a new digital shield to make sure nothing like this or worse penetrate that Newman Castle, he sees standing tall and imposing from his bedroom window every night.

Reed calls him insane. His mom looks at him, once, and dear God, her eyes are as piercing as people say they are. Should he curtsy or bow? He has no idea.

After the longest pause of his life, Ms. Newman agrees and thanks him and catches the beginning of her calling his mom. Detective Rashida Walker, head of the Sexual Crimes and Cold Case unit at the Genoa City Police Department.

Lou can always feel things are changing. It's in his gut. Somewhere in his bones.

Then, it does. Just texts from Chanel in quick succession.

_babe.  
can't sleep.  
period's late. _

He remembers his heart beginning to race. No, no, no.

Lou remembers vividly every sexual experience he has from the day he loses his virginity to an older girl down the block when he's thirteen. He wears a damn condom and Chanel is on the pill after he takes _her_ virginity.

_took a test twice.  
two lines _

_i'm pregnant. _

Lou blinks and stupidly wants to text, _is it mine? _But he doesn't.

His fingers are shaking. Lou almost can't breathe, and jumps out of bed.

A wave of nausea drowns him and chokes him so intensely. He can see uncertainty as a bottomless tunnel, distant screeching of a speed train headed for him. Fear churns in his stomach, not for him. Or, Chanel, but for this baby he makes with her when he isn't trying. _  
_

Lou tries to control his nausea, but it kicks his ass and sends him throwing up and retching in his trash bucket.

—

It takes Lou and Chanel three months to process it mentally, while figuratively moonwalking harder than Michael Jackson – may he rest in power and no Thriller slander will be tolerated – to hide things physical. Chanel doesn't look pregnant. She tells him she's hiding her prenatal vitamins in the loose bathroom tile above her toilet. He lies about going to school when he's doing more of his courses online to fast track his ass out of Genoa City High. He's in and out of Newman Enterprises when Ms. Newman needs him to consult, work with their IT dudes and security department at the same time and he's paid decently for it. So, he'll manage on the money front and do what he has to. Never be the man who leaves his wife and two young kids behind only to reappear with contrition, regrets while run down by the legal system. It's easy to be sorry and give a damn when serving a hefty sentence for attempted murder. It's odd knowing his dad is reduced to a set of assigned numbers. Ramona still want to know him, know of him. Lou figures he knows enough. He's got his own problems and for the sake of his sanity, has to find every reason in the world to laugh. It's his balm. It's his medicine. It's why he needs engineering. He's building something and put it out there with the comfortable knowledge of leaving an indelible mark in the world. He just never expects it to be a baby.

Good news travels. Rumors are whispers and spilled tea being hot isn't just a saying anymore. Not with him. It takes Grandma Ruthie not long to figure out she's going to be a great-grandmother. Grandmothers are magical being and wisdom must be the source of their power. Chanel's older sister finds out next, surprising them by saying nothing because it's not her place and may be this will teach their parents that the world isn't as linear as they preach to the congregation on Sundays. As Chanel's tummy grows with his child – holy shit, he's going to be someone's father – so do the number of people who knows. Steph, stoic as ever, has the look of confusion and muted surprise as Reed tries to hide coughing on his coffee.

"Hmm," Steph says finally, as her eyes lock on his. "I'd say congratulations but it wouldn't register with you."

It doesn't.

"Wow," Reed starts, and blinks at him. He shakes his head. "You're going to be a…dad? Dude. A baby? Wow. I mean, I'd wish you and Chanel congrats, but this is wild," he exhales, bringing his coffee to his lips again. "I mean, I'm glad I'm not you. My mom would go nuclear."

"No shit, Reed!" Lou snaps, controlling the volume of his voice and how sharp he sounds. He's hiding ultrasound photos, giving Chanel and this kid his time and attention because he's responsible for them. He buys a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and hides between his mattresses, or some obscure place in his car. "I'm sorry. I'm stressed… Fuck. The one time I used protection and she was actively taking the pill… I might as well go pick out my casket, you guys. I'm gonna die."

"You're doing work for my mom at Newman though?"

"Yeah, and listen, it's a lot. But I love doing it and it helps me tune out things," he explains and then feels a tug at his lips. It's hard to smile these days when piss scared. "Your mom gives me a ton of stuff to do and pays me. It's good."

Reed frowns lightly, glancing downward and shrugs.

"You're gonna be there for your kid. That's… what matters, right?"

"Yeah," Lou affirms. "No doubt. I'm not trying to be my parents."

He knows Reed well enough to know that he's shutting down and his family is powerful, his grandfather is an OG, Mrs. Newman is one of the coolest people ever – for a grandmother. She has a past as a stripper when his grandmother is a member of Black Panther Party in the late 60s. Lou isn't the type as a kid to sit down and absorb instructions and understand wisdom, but his grandmother speaks in riddles all the time, so he's forced to listen and break it apart to what he means. Sometimes, he fools himself into finding some hidden subtexts. Sometimes using four different cheeses in her mac and cheese isn't symbolic for the balance of life and the four elements that shape it. All it means is that the mac and cheese isn't dry. That's it. Grandma Ruthie casts him a sideways glance and then tells him to slide this pan of mac and cheese in the oven so he can be honest with her and tell her everything.

—

Changes. Lou senses them coming, hard and fast. In his case, changes unravel in real time week to week. One week it's Chanel's morning sickness being All Day Sickness with the next week being the beginnings of a tiny baby bump. The only thing that remains unchanged between he and his girlfriend is that abortion isn't an option. She's more religious than she cares to admit, and well, Lou still finds himself in a three hour church service where tithing is more mandatory than a metaphor, or the Holy Spirit saying so. The bishop has a new suit every week and Lou realizes it's his cup running over. Oh. It's like _that_.

"Impending fatherhood finally made you woke."

"Who lied and told you I wasn't?" Lou questions, glancing at her up and down. "I'm always woke out here. For one," he explains seriously to receive a raised inquiring eyebrow from Steph and Reed leaning in his chair, "I know I'm not going to have my kid look at me differently. And two, I'm not having my son or daughter put me on some freakishly high pedestal. I've done the falling thing. Not fun."

Steph's lips, painted a dark plum, quirk into the shadow of a smile.

"It's not that awful when you see your parents for what they are—"

"—because," Reed finishes right after her because these two have some freaky mind meld thing going on that nobody really understands, "it means you _know_, but do we really know? I mean, what if my dad is the villain this town swears he is? What if my mom is an actual witch?"

Lou stares at him, warily, "Bro, you good? That was oddly detailed."

"Well, my life's fucked," Reed mutters. "Has been for a while."

Steph's blue eyes have a gleam in them. Lou can't place it and he doesn't dare peek into the wheels and gears that turn inside that really dark mind of hers. She swears, roots into her purse and slips a translucent purple lighter in his hand.

"There's a fresh pack of cigarettes behind that Monet painting at the guesthouse. There's no one home and you're wound up now. The fridge is stocked up and no, I'm not telling you where the liquor is," Steph says in that matter of fact way only she can. And yep, Lou is still scared of her. He isn't going to admit it to her face though. She drops her house keys in front of him on the table and jerks her head towards the door. "Call your mom. Tell her you're with me tonight. She has an issue with it, I'll tell her I offered and you're fine."

"My mom wouldn't go for it."

"It doesn't matter what she would go for," Steph argues, not caring. "What matters is that you're sane when you go home in the morning. You need space and a break from the questions you have about your dad, dude."

Reed takes the set of keys and thanks her. She shrugs, sipping on her black coffee.

He can't help by extend a fist to her. She looks at it, him, and then bumps it with a light roll of her eyes. "You're gonna be a dad, Humphries. I don't want to be mean to you. Today."

Lou raises his mug to her. "And Grandma Ruthie says Satan can't be gracious. Here, here."

Steph chuckles, and brushes back her hair before showing him her middle finger. It's streaked an ice grey. Like she's taking actual ice and twisted it into her hair until it melts into it. It's starkly different on her but there's a shift in all of them. Reed is more mature, more driven, surer of his music aspirations while this baby is real to him and anxiety rattles in his chest. Anticipation, too.

All three of them look at each other and Lou thinks yep, shit has truly changed. In hindsight, Lou muses being recalled into his present, he's a kid but he's in a really grown up situation he can't change. Not that he wants to anyway.

—

It takes months of every emotion thrown at him and reality really knocking him in the face. His family is blown away – his mother is rendered speechless, for once. Ramona hugs him and says some slick shit about being the favourite now. Chanel's family isn't any easier and the good reverend tries to kick his visibly pregnant daughter out of the house until her mother intervenes. She declares she knows all along and is just waiting for Chanel to say something.

It changes day to day and Lou can't expect support. Maybe because the baby isn't here, or maybe because the baby isn't tangible although very visible.

Chanel's water breaks on November 28.

On November 29, Lou's life changes forever as the axis of his world tilts so quickly, he falls and doesn't know how to stand back up. He hears sounds, sees doctors and nurses, feels Chanel clamp down on his hand and then in the silence, Lou hears it. He hears _her_.

A little girl, the doctors say. A daughter. God, he has a daughter.

On November 29th, at 3:16am, Zahra Joy Whittaker-Humphries cries her into the world, flushed pink and little fists flailing. This little girl with a head of dark hair, her mother's ears, his mouth and maybe his eyes – he can't tell and he's too busy marvelling at how he brings something so beautiful in the world – grabs a fistful of his heart and doesn't let go.

Zahra. His shining, brilliant beauty full of light.

—

His daughter is swaddled and wears a little pink cap.

Zahra rests on Chanel's chest as she makes these little sounds. Squeaks, short cries, a coo or two. He's not sure what it all means as her hand is wrapped around her mother's finger. Is she saying hello? Is she probably questioning why she isn't safe and warm in Chanel's belly anymore? It doesn't matter because Lou has this little human who needs him and trust him. Chanel cradles the baby with a glance at her and a soft smile, studying Zahra's sleeping form. Louis slides in, aware there is something priceless here. She meets his eyes, with her hair a messy bun on her head and those freckles he loves so much prominent. Lou wonders his daughter will inherit those freckles.

Chanel shifts, and invites him with a pat on the spot next to the bed.

He knows there are people outside, an avalanche of well wishes and jubilation but he selfishly wants to cherish this for himself.

Lou gently slides into that spot, slipping an arm around Chanel's shoulders. His grandma always tells him sagely that he may be grown in the body, but he's half-empty in spirit. He heart feels physically heavy, full of a kind of love that is so powerful, he could be baptized in it. Zahra tentatively opens her eyes, blinks once and then twice. Chanel shifts the baby and he admits when he feels all 7 pounds and 6 ounces of her fill the space between his arms, Lou's eyes get misty. He presses a feather light kiss to the little pink cap on her head.

Every little breath she takes is in time with Lou's heartbeat.

"You're in love, huh?"

Lou notes how rosy Zahra's cheeks rosy are. "Daddy's got you," he says, softly, "and your mom's pretty smart and the real MVP here, you know. I _am_ in love with you, Zahra Joy."

He takes his gaze away from the baby to meet Chanel's worried look. She frowns, slightly.

"Hey, I gassed you up to our little twinkle here," he replies and noticing, playing with her hands. She does that when she's frustrated or unsure or even nervous. It's a serious kind of tension in the room like an elastic band has been stretched. It's fraying as he grasps one end and she the other. Zahra's whole life rests in the middle of this tension. Lou brushes an errant curl from her face and she exhales. "Hey. Babe, talk to me. No jokes. Promise."

"Can you give her to me so I can put her in the bassinet over here?"

"Yeah," Lou agrees, and gently transfers Zahra into Chanel's waiting arms. The baby cries at the sudden movement. Chanel just rocks her as she gently places their daughter in the bassinet. His gaze flickers to the door, suddenly aware that Zahra will join other babies born on this day down in the nursery. He hates those damn nurses. "She good?"

"Just asleep, but she's good. We made her, Lou," she marvels. She sniffles, voice cracking. "We have a child. This little girl who is innocent and will need us for the rest of her life," she wipes at her eyes, arm with the IV needle embedded it. "I'm so happy, so tired. I love her, but…" she looks at him, some tears drying on her cheeks and new ones streaking down her cheeks, "…I'm so scared. She's so perfect and we're going to screw up."

Lou kisses her forehead and wipes her tears.

"You know what?" Lou says, and grabs her hands, kisses them. "I was talking with Reed and Steph early in your pregnancy. We were just sharing things that were happening to us. I'm worried just like you. That little girl over there will depend on us and no matter how old she gets, we're Mom and Dad. Reed is away at school right now, and these hits about his dad just keep coming."

Chanel blinks and concern falls on her face. "There's more on his dad?"

"My mom is one of the officers working on it with Detective Rosales. That's all I know. She can't tell me anything because I'm some weird conflict of interest. I do work for Newman Enterprises, and… Reed's my best friend. But that's just it. My friend is so twisted up because all of a sudden, his dad is one huge question mark," Lou explains, matter of factly to his girlfriend. "That's just the point. I don't want Zahra to question us. I don't want her to believe her parents are perfect because we aren't. So, that means we're going to screw up. She'll lose it when her foods touch, get mad when I don't like her boyfriend…or girlfriend."

Chanel laughs, quietly.

"Hey, it can happen and I'm okay with it."

"True," Chanel agrees. "She'll grow up and rebel, probably yell at me for ruining her life."

"She won't be perfect either, but I don't want be a question mark to Zahra. I don't want to be here and then shift in a way that has her so confused it hurts," Lou continues. "It's not the best situation. We had plans but you know, we'll figure it out. We're not going to be like our parents and Zahra won't ever go through what Reed has been because we won't let it happen."

Chanel takes a cleansing breath and then exhales, kissing him.

"Okay," Chanel says, after pondering it in comfortable silence. "I believe you. We'll do what we have to do for her."

Oh. It's November 29th. Oh God.

He laughs, just like God might when the mere mortals are foolish enough to plan anything.

"It's November 29th."

"Uh, I know," Chanel says, attention back on Zahra. The baby sucks on a soother the hospital gives her as she sleeps. "That's what it'll say on the birth certificate."

"What if… I happened to call Reed later today and offer him a birthday present?"

"Oh," Chanel realizes. "It's his birthday…and hers."

"You smart," he says playfully, in the tone of DJ Khalid. "You loyal."

He kisses her nose.

"So, what birthday present were you thinking?"

Lou grins. "Asking him to be our kid's godfather…if he wants it."


	2. Part I

**1.**

When he leaves everyone behind in Genoa City, he realizes that the time away changes him.

He's the same person. He's grown his hair out, made sure not to screw around with school and he's actually pulling in B+ grades across most the board. There's that one solid A in the musical classes. Berklee School of Music is interested in him while UCLA's Herb Alpert School of Music and the Madison campus over at University of Wisconsin gives him the option of being close to home.

Then there's actual life.

His actual life that changes itself so many times, Reed doesn't quite know how to get back to the original version of it. It's like he relives the same days over and over on the off-chance that something might change. Just in case, his dad isn't dead and isn't erased from the planet like the name Jeffrey Todd Hellstrom never exists.

There's everything he knows before his dad's memorial and then everything afterwards.

Nobody really sleeps. He's sure Mom doesn't. He knows that because Billy stays over. Sure, for Johnny and Katie and it's always nice having him around. He seems to get closer to Mom these days, not that it's none of his business anymore. Billy's a cool stepfather and Reed doesn't mind it. Then again, Reed barely understands what it's like to have two parents in one home. Then again, one parent gets physical with the other and holy shit, how does he not know? Reed's in bed but not really. He's not asleep, not drumming up nightmares of what the alternative could be.

One thing he learns about leaving Genoa City is the idea that it's easy to look back.

Does he always know? Does Reed know on some deep seeded level that something is wrong? Does he know that Dad and Mac are crumbling when Becca is the new baby in the house? His dad is shorter than usual, gets distant when he tells him stories about his teenage days. He knows of his dad's accident and without it, his dad would be a cop or a detective. He knows Reed gets his dad makes mistakes but holy shit, he can't quite understand it. Reed sees this guy who cares about his opinion, corrects him even though he annoyed by it, and a guy that should have a long, healthy and happy life. When he promises revenge for his dad's murder – because that's what it is when a man in his 40s disappears and turns up dead even with no body for Reed to look at or bury – he means it. But all he has now is this searing anger in his stomach, heaviness in his chest and this pounding in his head that doesn't seem to stop.

If he's up all night, he might as well be productive. It's a side effect of this new maturity he's trying out and he isn't hating it. It doesn't mean Reed doesn't want to be angry, run, break things more than just the face of his father framed in time. The same hands Reed watches hold a guitar balanced on his dad's knee are the same ones that hurt, he's sure. He's sure it's the reason this suffocating tension becomes another entity in the house until Reed makes the decision to pack a bag, hop out of his bedroom window in biting winter just before Christmas. He's on edge and finds refuge with one friend or another, discovers that alcohol is like morphine for the misunderstood and cigarettes calm him.

Reed remembers watching Dad's fingers pluck out chords he himself try to discover or at the very least mimic. He stands back in awe as his father plays the guitar with smooth finesse Reed himself will strive to get even if his fingers bleed. He hears his dad sing of lost love, of a girl who stays young, beautiful and perfect, and two names etched in dark mahogany wood with the heavy musk of coffee in the air. _Colleen. Traci's daughter_, Reed recalls from the stories of his father's teenage days.

As the tension stretches itself under the walls of this house he grows up in, Reed recalls unfinished lines. Lyrics absentmindedly written in the corners of Dad's work files during the morning blitz to wherever. Reed can't recall the lines now. Especially now in the dead of night and especially now if the idea of who JT Hellstrom is – was, of course it's past tense now because his father is dead – shaken up and broken into many pieces Reed can't fathom putting them back together. Then again, should he? DJ is probably young enough to hear everything but old enough to understand the bare minimum. Becca is too little to know and understand anything and for that, Reed is thankful. But he doesn't know what he will tell them about him and it's the downside of being a big brother. A half-step from being a parent but a little cooler than being one himself.

Reed lies on his back in the dark aside from the streetlights on outside. A neighbour's dog howls.

He reaches out on his side, removing his Samsung Galaxy 9 from its charger and he squints across the backlight that illuminates his phone.

2:46am.

"Shit," he curses, feeling the pressure of his bladder more acutely.

He understands two things tonight: he's not sleeping tonight because this need to make whatever sense he can of Dad will consume him if he tries, and he really needs to pee.

—

Somewhere between peeing and getting back to his room to do…whatever, Reed decides he better do something productive. His school work is mostly online and Reed gets the news that not only are his overall grades strong and he passes his exams better than he expected. He has enough credits to finish in April, before graduating in June. He's only notified that he's on the Dean's List, Berklee School of Music, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, the Madison School of Music and the Herb Alpert School of Music in UCLA all offer him early conditional offers. Reed stares at his school e-mail inbox, reads all four offers over to make sure it's actually true and this is happening. Holy shit.

Reed has conditional offers from four colleges. He remembers being nervous and how much work he puts into his audition tape and how his stomach turns for weeks. Of course, Reed knows he wants to do music for the rest of his life. Chase the dream that crumbles and slips between his fingers because one of circumstance or another – Dad doesn't say much on that, but on some level, it has to do some wicked shit to his head. Reed is actually on his way there. He's standing on a weird four-way crossroads and he's the one in control. He can choose Boston, go over to New York, cross country to Los Angeles or stay home and make the hour and a half drive to Madison from Genoa City.

Wrapped up in the stuff with his dad's murder and nearly killing his grandmother, Reed has no idea something like this is happening to him. That it can happen to him. But he's here and he's happy. Best good news in a while because it feels like one question in his life is answered and settled. It's not because now he has to choose and make a decision. The music business is not easy, he knows, and is aware.

He's not a naïve kid. It's not a phase. He wants this.

It's the only thing he's certain of when he's unsure of everything else.

—

_Yeah, it's easier to put yourself out there because the technology's changed but if you're sure you want it and you're hungry, then you'll be fine_, Dad says and bumps his fist. _You're off to a better start than I was. _

Mom is the one who doesn't, for once, shield him for trying the music thing as a long-term career. It's like she makes peace with her first born not being a lawyer, or an engineer or especially carrying on the family legacy at Newman Enterprises. It's not all bad. She still has Johnny and Katie for that, but Reed knows it's not path to ending being a corporate drone in a really scary, messed up machine. The vibe at Newman Tower feels more like Game of Thrones all the time if Reed has to be honest.

_You have no idea how badly I want you here, but I want you to be fulfilled, _Mom says seriously as they sit at Crimson Lights for one of the final times before he transfers to school. The No Tears Rule is in effect until he gets to the airport. She inhales, quietly sniffling before smiling at him. _I know, I know. No tears. I got it. I was just remembering when you were a baby. You're my first-born. My boy but you're going to be an adult. You have your own mind, your own thoughts and feelings. I'm sorry you feel frustrated where your father is concerned, but it's comforting to know that you have a solid foundation in music and you're going to work hard. The entertainment business is like the corporate one. Ruthless people who will stab anyone in the front. _

_Jeez, Mom, _he says, noticing a glimmer in her eyes he never sees until now. _You make it sound like a post-apocalyptic wasteland where survival matters over everything else. _

She shrugs_. It could be._ _When you're a Newman, it means everything. Just make sure that you're second to no one and that if you want to thrive in music long-term, find ways to make yourself known. Don't let anyone ever silence you or push you aside. You're a Newman. You don't take crap from anyone. _

Reed watches his mom sip her tea, put it down and touch her throat but she doesn't know she's doing it. She doesn't know he's watching her do it and he isn't going to ask. He pulls his gaze away from her movements and focuses on his coffee. He raises his eyes to meet hers and says he understands where she's coming from. Reed can't understand why the smallest shudder twists itself around the column of his spine.

She plasters a smile on her face but it fails to reach her eyes.

That will stay with Reed forever. Her advice. The way something is happening with her or does already and he's completely unaware. It tugs at some darkened space of his mind and leaves him with a slight ache in his chest long after she hugs him, kisses him on the cheek and heads out for Newman.

—

It's easy to get music out there because he does have covers out there and with his performances at the Underground archived there, people know him. People ask for more covers. He performs at the Summer Bash show case by his guidance counsellor this summer in Maine. His guidance counselor, Jared, set it up so Reed can see the logistics of how music festivals and performances and be on stage for exposure. The weather in Maine is cloudy, and the three days are a blur – he may or may not hook up with a female drummer with a shock of electric blue hair and almond shaped eyes that are a weird green colours. He only remembers her name is Josie because her band is after his solo performance and they spend the first day of the festival hanging out.

He exhales, combing his bedhead with his fingers and gets to working on his English assignment. It's due in a month but he might as well start it now and it's not hard. His assignment is just to add a musical twist to the play he is assigned by random draw.

Hamlet.

Of course. Of all the plays Shakespeare writes.

Hamlet.

Reed closes the lid of his laptop down and grabs his black leather song writing journal with the folded in pages, the different coloured handwriting in the margins to tell the difference between bridge, verses and chorus. He plops down into bed, clutching his journal with his musical thoughts, and feelings only understood by black and white ivory keys underneath his fingertips and taut guitar strings being plucked by ready fingers. Reed clicks on his lamp on his night table, illuminating his decently kept room in a soft light. There are Post It Notes of song titles, a list of things to do and he sees the last thing on the list. The one thing that is like a force pulling him toward Genoa City even when life goes on in New Hampshire.

**Go home. Find out what happens to Dad (he was ****murdered****).**

He angrily flips to one of the last fresh blank pages and writes:

**Understand what happens to Mom (she was ****abused****).  
Apologize for being a huge dick. **


	3. Part II

**2\. **

There's his own guilt and shame and the love he swears will always be there where Grandma is concerned. However, something else makes him confess to being the one being the wheel. She's fine and recovers almost miraculously but his heart still twists a little painfully when he realizes the dent in Charlie's car is from his grandmother's body colliding with it. He hugs her a little tightly and can never apologize enough.

Reed finally meets Lou's newborn daughter a couple of days after he's back in GC. He has no problems with babies and little kids. They're better than adults in that, they're too young to judge and form any real perception. To Johnny, Becca, Katie and DJ, he's just their cool big brother. Kids don't hold grudges and he learns that all it takes to get forgiveness is saying he's sorry. Reed gets to his friend's house and for once, Lou isn't home. Chanel tells him he's visiting with his grandmother. He remembers Mrs. Walker and her stories as a dancer in the 60s and 70s before she meets Mr. Walker.

Reed is pretty sure marriage isn't for him. He won't be anyone's husband. When he comes from a family where partners switch up quicker than relationships forming underneath high school hallways, the idea of marriage loses its novelty. That, and marriage _is _outdated more than it is confusing.

Meeting Zahra, though, is simple.

Chanel pads down the stairs with the baby in her arms and Reed finds that he's excited to meet this little girl who happens to enter the world the same day he turns 18. It's wild. He sees tiny fingers, feet covered with a soft pink and purple blanket. She wears a little purple headband and already has a developing head of dark curls.

"She's happy, fed, changed and asleep," Chanel says, adjusting the soother as Zahra sleeps. Reed can't help but marvel at how tiny and defenceless she is. Lou and Chanel are responsible for this little person forever. Chanel grins brightly at him. "You look good, Reed. Sorry you couldn't catch Louie."

"Nah, it's cool. He texted me and said it was fine to come over," Reed adds. "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"Lou said he had something to ask me."

"Oh, that… he's basically latched onto this idea since we had the baby. He just wanted to run it by me first. We talked about it and now, that you're here," Chanel starts as Zahra opens her eyes, and starts crying. "Shhh… it's okay, baby girl. She takes after her dad. Really mellow, easy baby, but cries when she wants to know what's happening," Chanel explains to him with a soft laugh. It's crazy how they become friends during Study Hall but now she's a mom, his best friend since third grade is a dad and he is apparently, Zahra's godfather.

"What?" he questions, stunned. Reed must still be jet-lagged. "Lou's messing with me, isn't he? You're loyal for helping him but I couldn't. Seriously? Me?"

"Yes," Chanel confirms. "She shares your birthday. November 29. You're going to be in her life a lot. Reed. The birthday thing just solidified asking you for us."

He pauses, unsure of what to say next.

Godfather. He lets the word rest in his mind a little bit. He's a son. Nephew. Cousin. Brother four times over. Nobody's boyfriend, really. Godfather. It must be heavier than being a sibling, a little less lighter than being a parent and holy shit, he's going to be someone's godfather. He exhales.

"Wow. I don't know what to say."

Chanel chuckles. "You don't have to say anything. Just meet her," she says, guiding him through holding Zahra even though he goes through holding DJ, Becca and Johnny and Katie. He still maintains that he's the best babysitter ever. "There. Just support her head and see, she just settled into your arms. I'm going to check if there are any bottles ready for later and text her dad for more baby wipes."

"Okay."

Chanel kisses Zahra on the forehead, "Be good for your Uncle Reed, sweet girl. Mommy's coming back."

She presses a friendly kiss on his cheek, touches his shoulder supportively and then disappears into the kitchen with her phone.

—

Reed is holding this little baby with pieces of her dad, pieces of her mom and wonders if it's like this for his parents. It's a long way to eighteen, and even then, the love and parenting never stops. Zahra's dark eyes stare into his face and he doesn't know how but she has his pinky in her grasp.

Shit. He may be gone for this kid.

Maybe what they say about babies being magic or little bursts of light.

"Hey, Zahra," he says, softly to the baby who looks like at him with eyes slowly getting slow with sleep. Her little mouth opens with a soft yawn so she releases the soother. Reed catches and finds himself adjusting it without even thinking of it. "I'm Reed, your…godfather, and it's cool to meet you. Can I tell you a secret?" he gently rocks her because all babies like that, he's sure. "I'm new to this godfathering thing. You're new to being my goddaughter. We'll help each other, okay?"

Zahra's little breaths are mixed with little snores and Reed touches her soft head.

"I'll share all my birthdays with you forever. I promise."

She's only two weeks old. Babies can't consciously smile but Reed swears the corner of her lip go upward for a moment while he converts the chorus of Elton John's _Tiny Dancer_ in a lullaby.

—

New Year Eve has him at Kendall's house because she does it every year. There's drinking. There are kids he knows chasing down brightly coloured pills with his grandma's favourite brand of vodka, Jack Daniel's whiskey Reed finds himself drawn to but never touches and good old reliable non-brand foamy beer. Kendall's different. Hair still dark as he remembers but highlighted. He doesn't know what he recalls that. Older demeanour. Claws and fangs sharper. Losing a parent does that but she's lucky. Her mom dies of cancer. It's a fact. Kendall's mother dies as she remembers her. Losing his dad is bullshit because he isn't lost. He isn't on a list of fugitives that has law enforcement hunting him down before Grandpa finds him. The police are so sure he's murdered but there's no body. Just a watch and DNA confirmation they swear is _that of Jeffrey Todd Hellstrom_, he recalls Detective Rosales saying at the press conference at Chancellor Park.

Reed takes in another mouthful of soda, talking to people he knows and doesn't remember. He smiles, nods at people he knows across the room. They'll probably tag him on Instagram later. 2018 is ticking away literally. He's watching a group of kids getting stoned. Another group of kids play Beer Pong and a couple drunkenly make out a few feet from him. The James mansion has an aesthetic of glass and stones, and his eyes travel to the framed photos and expensive artifacts nailed to the walls. Cream coloured sofas and matching sectionals, a giant screen television broadcasts the New Year Eve broadcast from Times Square. A glittering chandelier hangs like a cluster of stars over his head and takes his last swig of orange flavoured soda. There's a thumping of music and cheers break out as sports captains he remembers vaguely come through the kitchen door with kegs of beer. Last year, he's all over this, somewhere between mildly sober and halfway to comfortably wasted.

He doesn't want to be here and would honestly rather binge something with Mom for New Year's Eve. It's lame, wanting to be home with his mother. Maybe it's because without knowing everything yet, she knows what he's feeling. A slight ringing goes off in his left ear and there's an uncomfortable crawling feeling that borrows itself beneath his skin. It's swimming in his blood and a slight pain blooms in his temple. Reed feels all shaken up and carries all this tension inside of him. Reed wishes he can figure out a way to release it through his music but can't quite focus when his hands shake and there's the wrong chord. Some days he wants to play a classical piece with sheet music when he's a by-ear kind of guy. For Grandma, Reed will read and decipher all the sheet music filled with notes that glide, and weave their way through and around treble and bass clefs.

But no, Mom insists he go have fun on New Year's Eve. If there's anything on Grandma, she'll call and text him right away. A song pounds over and around people. It's not his sound. Some new release from LP. It's catchy but the auto tone doesn't settle right in his ear. He tosses his soda can in a trash bag that overflows with red cups, grabs his jacket and moves to leave. He finds his jacket, shrugs it in and feels around for his phone. Nothing. No calls or texts.

11:45pm. Reed will go home and damnit, tell Mom everything and start 2019 with finally saying goodbye to his dad. Charlie isn't going to talk him out of it. When he shrugs on his jacket and wraps his scarf loosely around his neck, Reed feels two taps on his shoulder.

"Look, I'm not in the mood anymore," he starts, not really caring but still trying to find some kind of politeness. He's tired of saying hi to people who don't really know him and doesn't have the energy to play catch-up with the people he does. Reed promises his mom to have fun, to make good choices and mind his manners. He mutters, under his breath. "Party's lame as hell."

"I'll forgive you for that," she says from behind, voice light and sultry. He turns around to realize it's easy to smile around her because some things never change. A laugh from her lips and a quiet laugh from him. "I'll pretend you said my party was legendary instead, Reed," she says, stepping toward him with a natural swing in her hips. "Leaving so soon?"

This is her house so of course, she has everyone flock over to her house for whatever party she feels like throwing. Kendall's dark hair is swept up in a bun. She has bangs and there's that familiar twinkle in her hazel eyes lined with eyeliner. Her cheeks have a rosy blush in them and Reed is amused that her gold sweater is sparkling from the light from yet another grand chandelier. The lips glossed bright red sparks a memory. Several, actually. Their first kiss even when Kendall is really shitty for setting up the circumstances. She wears leggings and stripped socks on her feet.

Their first hookup is his first time. And there's last time before he leaves for New Hampshire. It's not sex, but it's not love. It's somewhere in between. It's a moment that makes Reed realize he doesn't have to hide in this world of quiet reality where his father's existence ends on a beach in Hawaii. He closes his eyes and there's just this storm of grief, pain and understanding that it's okay to let the monsters breathe. Kendall is brilliantly vindictive, will twist someone's emotions until she gets to watch them break and decimate them if they're in her path. This girl is tiny but leaves shockwaves with the potential to crack the Earth to its foundation. She's a dream and a nightmare.

There's that electricity churning. It's sparking in the room and it's not from the chandelier. It's this attraction, this tension that could snap if stretched too far. Kendall James is the kind of girl to hold his head underwater. He'd scream and his lungs would burn but it would be silent and peaceful. There's always that itch. That itch that comes from still being mature, but getting to scratch the surface of his own recklessness.

His blue eyes travel over her and she gives a coy smile in return.

"Maybe I'm just…pulling a Kendall."

She giggles. "Oh, well, tell me what pulling a me, is like," she acts as if conjuring up a serious thought and snaps her fingers, the nails manicured as always. "I think I know. Grace everyone with your presence so much they'll miss you when you're not around?"

Reed playfully narrows his eyes in questioning. "Is that your master plan?"

She fingers his scarf, lets her hand brush the lapel of his jacket.

"I have no master plan," Kendall explains, dropping her tone until it's sultry. He can't hear the party raging to this crescendo as these strangers, acquaintances and questionable friends whip themselves up into a frenzy. It sounds like a mosh pit but no real music and reasoning to trace its reasoning. Someone made of glass breaks as Kendall touches his face, fingers like warm embers against his skin. "There's no plan to ask you how much the mystery around your father's murder makes you crazy. There's no sinister plan," she says, softly, unraveling his scarf from his neck. She's unraveling this noose from him before she unravels him and sees the layers he buries away for the sake of maturity. Independence. Getting his shit together. He doesn't have anything together. It's all a lie, and it all comes so easy to him. "Just you and me, and what we do best."

Reed wants to forget, wants to press pause before rewind or just cut out this mangled portion of his life before overlaying it with shit that makes sense.

He tucks an errant strand behind her ear and she blushes. It amuses him.

"I just made you blush."

"It's a good thing," she says, and kisses him like it's a precursor to something wild and frenzied to them but confusing and unhealthy to everyone not Reed Hellstrom and Kendall James. She breaks apart, and rasps against his mouth as his heart races, "I can pay you back by making _you_ feel things."

He kisses her as the party crowd counts down between six and five.

Kendall's quick fingers loosen his belt and he's being led backwards into a dimly lit enclave of her house. His head sounds like a vacuum, a string of dissonant piano keys and Reed's foot finds a mahogany door left afar and slams it to quiet the noise outside.

—

Reed can say sex with Kendall is just a grand thing. That it's cataclysmic but it's not.

It's not an upheaval of what he knows, who he knows and what he understands.

Being with Kendall this way is a release he uses to cut the tethers that hold him like chains. He's going in and out, recalls black lace as he presses a kiss to her throat and sharp nails in his back. It's going to leave a mark, but the cold should numb the physical pain. There's an arching of her back, a breathy moan that breaks the one syllable of his name into many. And then he finds herself staring up at her, there's that involuntary gasp not because she's painfully teasing him and gravity helps her out but because she's beautiful in this broken, tragic way. She's like a painting with no lines, shape or colour but swirls of black and white. Sometimes, light and dark meets at their edges and a razor sharp line of grey is all is seen.

Kendall orgasms, pulling him into that murky space with her until he's spent.

—

The forgetfulness is also merciful and something Reed feels he does not deserve.

Forgetting his dad's murder is a betrayal. Forgetting he's responsible for his grandmother's injuries means he's selfish. Forgetting his grandmother is missing and could die means he has to confess and do it now. He slips out of her bed and reaches for his jeans as he feels Kendall's gaze on his bare back and he also fights the urge to roll his eyes.

"What?" he pulls on his jeans and tugs his shirt over his head. Reed's heartbeat skips and his hands sweat, palms still against the leathery surface of Charlie's steering wheel. One heartbeat. The thud of Grandma's body against his car. Another ache in his bones. The imagery of his strong, vital grandmother in that hospital bed and feeling her fade away from just holding her hand in the silence. He turns around and she meets his gaze, sheets pulled up to her body. Her dark hair falls in her face, wild and untamed as she is. "Fuck," he curses, breathing sharply. "I have to go."

She shifts around, bunching the sheets up so she catches up to him. His shoes are at the door.

"It's cool," Kendall replies, and kisses him again. "Happy New Year, Reed."

Something seems final as if she's saying goodbye.

"Hey," he says, softly. He stares at Kendall, concerned and he doesn't know why. Or, maybe he does know and doesn't want to verbalize it. Grief is a monster and shadowed claws tear into his skin, carves this thirst for revenge and leaves him finding comfort in smoke clouds of nicotine and twisted fantasies of warm blood on his hands. He gets it. "Happy New Year to you, too. I didn't mean to attempt to run out of here…"

She giggles, and kisses his cheek on her tip toes.

"Shut up," she admonishes playfully, with a shit eating grin before Kendall smiles at him. "I know you're not the kind of guy to screw a girl and leave. You're sweeter than most guys."

No, he isn't. He's still the kind of guy to leave his grandmother broken in the snow.

He's not…sweet.

Reed is the type of guy to watch his family lose their minds and make things worse, even when trying to do the right thing. If he's going to do the right thing, he has to confess. He's going to confess. He pats around for his phone when he grabs his coat and is grateful to feel the squared outline of his pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

He puts on one shoe, then the other before straightening and pocketing his hands in his jacket.

Mom's going to kill him for leaving his gloves at home, but he'll die easier confessing. Maybe it's true what they say – confession being good for the soul. Or, something like that. He's not exactly religious and doesn't exactly pray but he finds himself placing wishes for his grandmother's recovery and his sanity in the hands of unseen entity that has to exist.

"No," Reed replies, with a wry smile before he kisses the side of Kendall's head and whispers against her temple, "I'm not."

He wishes a Happy New Year for real, weaves his way through all the drunken acquaintances he never really knows. Reed has others who remembers him but he forgets who they are. _Happy fucking New Year, Hellstrom! _One yells jovially at his back.

There's a squeal and a glassy eyed Cyndi McLaughlin throwing her arms around his neck with such force it stuns and annoys him. She's way too tiny to be that physically stronger. Her blonde hair is disheveled, eyeliner smudged and even her outfitof pinks, and purples scream at him. He glances down and Cyndi has a shoe on one foot, the other foot bare with the toes painted bright orange. This girl is one walking neon sign. Her eyeshadow is only looking wonky as hell. Even he can decipher that and makeup isn't his thing. Hey, Reed doesn't have any deep knowledge of cosmetics. That gene skips over him and lands in Katie, he realizes after catching his little sister trying on Mom's makeup, jewelry and shoes far too many times.

She steps back, cheeks wet and inhales, hand over her mouth.

"Ohmigod, Reed. I'm so sorry! Really, really sorry," she rambles, hiccupping more sobs as she thankfully untangles herself from him. "It's so—it's so messed up of me and I can't believe I didn't tell you sooner! I'm such a bitch! I mean, fuck… fuck Kendall and I hate her but still," she runs a hand through her wild hair as more fresh cheeks roll down her face and Reed inhales, to hold off the annoyance coiling in his gut. Cyndi exhales with a sob and shakes her head. "Your dad is dead and your grandmother could be dead. 2019 just isn't your year and I'm so damn…sorry."

The annoyance tightens itself around his stomach and buries itself in his heart somewhere, presses against his sternum. It twists, bends and stretches enough to leave more grooves and dents until the bone cracks. The pain is sharp as a clap of thunder, an uncomfortable rattling Reed experiences more than once. There's red creeping into his vision and it's not just the red cups strewn throughout this space he hates so damn much. The owner is semi-reclusive and he just has sex with her – great sex, of course – but still, Reed hate this house for the most part.

"Find your fucking shoe, Cyndi and stay away from me…" Reed nearly snarls at her and storms off in the bitter January cold to begin his short 20 minute walk home.

There's always Uber and he has the money, but he needs this walk.

He can't exactly take the time to get fresh air in his lungs and give them a dark tinge with a hit of nicotine at the same time, now can he?

—

When Reed reaches his street, he's smoked his cigarette nearly down to the filter.

He sees Mom and Phyllis hanging out even though they aren't friends. It's strange to him but he's so indifferent to how he sees or feels about Phyllis, it's a waste of time. He doesn't hate her but he doesn't like her either. Reed just doesn't care. Reed spies the front door and then stops himself as he's in the middle of taking out his keys. Reed glances upwards from the sturdy tree branch to his bedroom window. He's running through different scenarios to get in. It's not that he's avoiding his mom. Really, he isn't. He's just trying to figure out how time he has from climbing the tree to that branch connected to his bedroom window. Reed can swing his body just so, get the window open and get in. His dad teaches him to get into the house in case he locks himself out of the house and can't find the spare back in DC. Just in case, all else fails and it's a real emergency. Mom's house is no different. He has the chance to mentally lay out the pros and cons out and also has the chance to take the trip down the stairs to explain why. Maybe that will make his choice seem less reckless.

Reed sees his mom tip back her nearly empty glass of champagne, and sets it down before she lowers herself onto the couch. God, he's a terrible person. She's crying and Phyllis – and nope, still not friends with his mother to his knowledge – is hugging her and rubbing her back.

Wind presses at his back towards the entryway from the kitchen as if an unseen hand shoves him.

Okay. Okay.

He's doing it and if Charlie is mad about it, screw him.

Reed takes his last drag of the cigarette, its stubby tip glowing a bright orange. He holds the smoke in his lungs before releasing it like a steady cleansing breath. Like a cleansing breath that destroys his heightened nerves and calms his adrenaline before every show.

He flicks the cigarette butt into a neighbour's lawn, three doors down and readies himself.

"Don't be a pussy," Reed tells himself as he apologizes to Grandma, hoping once again she hears it and understands even though no one else does. He repeats like a mantra. "Just tell the damn truth."

He has four little siblings _and_ a new goddaughter now.

—

_Telling my mom 2nite.  
Idgaf anymore. _

He hits send and powers his phone before Reed can be spoken off this new ledge by Charlie.

**DUDE.  
R u insane? I told u what went down with my mom.  
DON'T.  
PICK UP, DAMNIT. WTF. **

—

"Now that Reed is here, I'll go."

"Mom? What's wrong? Is it Grandma?"

Mom separates from her and he doesn't even register Phyllis leaving until it's just him and her. She clears her throat and wipes at her eyes like if she hides it, she won't lose points for having a sad moment because that's who Victoria Newman. The oldest. The strong one. He thinks she doesn't know how to be human in that she doesn't cast that wide of an emotional net, but Reed loves her. She's the same mom who makes an effort to get to know who he is, asks about school and not just the grades, listens when he's not sure of a song and tells him if he's not sure it means he cares about his work so much he only wants to give the best he has to genuinely offer.

She's still the same person who will binge watch things with him on Netflix. Reed is wrong is understanding his mother in terms of her emotional capacities being well-defined. They aren't. Under all that steel and ice queen exterior is a woman who marries at an age younger than him, rebels in a Swiss boarding school, shares her real first kiss there with a girl named Yvonne and loves only one woman in her life while on a two-year Italian adventure. She loves people and loses them. Of course, Dad is somewhere in a space no one really wants to touch because it's too painful for her and much too confusing and maybe just as tortuous for her.

"Mom," he questions again, more urgently, pleading with her, "is there news on Grandma?"

She sighs, "Yes. Your grandmother's missing from the hospital. No one knows where she is."

"Missing? Who would do that?" Reed asks, panicked. Someone takes his grandmother from the hospital where she's most safe. She's in a coma in the middle of nowhere. She can actually die this time. It's not a guilt-induced possibility he keeps in his own head this time. "Oh my God, Mom… we need to get to the hospital! The police need to look for her now and—"

"I know. I know," she reassures him. She's calm but her eyes carry panic and there's a stress that settles in her body. Reed knows logically being calm is his way of coping, but nobody should be this calm. "The hospital is doing everything they can," she explains and then she frowns. "At least they say they are. We have our own people looking to track your grandmother down. Your grandfather tends to fall off the Earth when he's lost in his work. But he'll re-appear. He'll move universes for her, honey. The sooner your grandmother is found, the sooner we can nail the hit-and-driver."

Reed turns away and feels his stomach lurch. It physically hurts.

"I'm sure the person who hit your grandmother is her abductor…" she theorizes. Reed can hear the wheels in his mother's mind turning and dear god, he's going to puke.

He stares at the mantle. Blue eyes travel to the framed pictures of all the people he loves. Christmas decorations done by Katie and Johnny. They're asleep peacefully and have no idea what's happening. Johnny and Katie wake him up by jumping on his downstairs because it's Christmas. Santa actually eats the cookies, drinks the milk and the reindeer love the carrots. He sends DJ & Becca's presents early. Something for Mac too. For Christmas, Reed gets Johnny a dinosaur onesie. Katie gets a new doll from him she names Belle and takes her everywhere now. For Billy, Reed gets him an agenda because planning life is boring but in short does, keeps a person sane. Writing things down, as Jared says, whether in journal or lyric form, helps him make sense of _most _things.

Reed finds a knitted scarf of ice blue at a little shop Grandma takes him to for his mom. He remembers the because he gets a Pink Floyd hoodie for himself the week before he leaves Genoa City. The colour reminds him of her eyes and how cold she is – not in a frostbitten, harsh way but cold in a way that makes him feel better if he's burning up in whatever emotional stuff becomes too intense to handle. He hopes Grandma will love the framed photo he gets her of just two of them. Reed needs her to be around and okay, just so he can capture her face lighting up when she opens it. Her Christmas present to him is just on his desk waiting to be opened. He doesn't want to say thank you yet for his great-grandfather's golden compass. Reed needs her out of the hospital. So, he'll wait to open it.

This, though, can't wait.

"No!" he blurts out, wheeling around to face his mother. She's stunned. "You're wrong. The kidnapper didn't hit her."

"How… How could you possibly know that?"

"Because," Reed takes a breath, looking directly at his mother with eyes full of truth and resolve, "it was me. I hit Grandma with that car. It was me, Mom."

Mom stands still for a moment. Stares at him in a way that feels like she's staring through him. She exhales and moves to lock the back door, peek through the blinds before closing them shut and lets her eyes travel upstairs. The only people up there are Johnny and Katie, dead to the world. They're not immune to falling asleep before midnight on New Year's Eve. She walks over, lets a quiet, whispered _damnit _push past her lips and then opens her eyes again. They're the colour of that soft wool icy blue scarf. Reed feels the temperature drop and gooseflesh start to break out on his skin. He doesn't know where Mom ends and The Ice Queen starts. It's a blurred space in his mom's personality. He knows that now.

"Sit," she orders, and his body pushes itself the single couch before his mind can catch up. She sits across from him and softens. "Okay," she says, processing it. "You're telling me you hit your grandmother and left her in the snow. You're telling me _you_ did that."

"Yeah. And I've been scared out of my mind ever since."

She softens. That's his mom. "Tell me everything, and when you do, I'll do _anything _to protect you."

Anything, Reed recalls. She hardens again. He's old enough to know that word means something different, something even dangerous. It's twisted up and withers within the branches of this Newman family tree. Reed gets a chill in his back and yep, there's that Ice Queen staring back at him through his mother's eyes.

"Okay, Mom. Fine," he relents, finally. He twists a ring on his pinky, heart hammering in his chest. "It started when I went over to Charlie's house…"


	4. Part III

**3\. **

The day of the memorial is an atomic bomb but the morning after is quiet with grey skies.

Sleep comes in and out of Reed's room and his head like an annoying couch surfacing roommate. He feels tired and hungover, drunk on the revelation that flips his perception of his father upside down. Reed doesn't remember waking up, checking his phone, showering and then changing into clothes that would mean he was going to mindlessly binge a lot of shows and movies he sees before. There's a thin layer of frost on his windows which justifies that he's staying in today. He can't exactly answer all of those texts and messages even though they all mean well. Rationale and understanding battle with irrational rage at how unfair it all is. Ignorance is bliss, they say. Well, he can no longer be ignorant about what he knows or think hiding in New Hampshire's peaceful, blissful scenery is enough.

How can Dad do this? How can Mom not tell him and suffer in silence? Why does Phyllis do it, and think it's her place? Why does he feel the need to run away from his home in DC, even when it stops feeling like home and more like four walls and a roof? Are DJ and Becca okay? Why are they young enough to process this when he has the misfortune of being old to be struck sideways? There's a hot spring of questions and answers Reed can't seem to reach. There's a geyser getting ready to erupt inside of him and he doesn't quite know when or where. All he knows is that right now, his emotions are all over the place.

Reed peels the curtain back and sees Billy's car pull into the driveway without Johnny and Katie. Oh. Johnny is most likely at school and Katie is with Traci. She spends the past two days chattering excitedly about that and Reed can't blame her. Traci is one of the good ones and can't thank her enough to validating that his father dies with some degree of goodness inside of him. Billy parks, gets out, and Reed can't feel his stomach drop when Mom's car is not there.

He glances at a black and white framed photo of just them at a table. It's at a party, but it's one of his favourites because he's in the middle of saying something to her and he's happy. Instead of questioning it or even playing it off even unintentionally, Reed remembers her laughing and her whole face lights up.

Mom's face doesn't light up like that anymore.

It's like Dad grabbing her that way – he can't bring himself to name it because it's real if he does – breaks something in her and she doesn't light up anymore. There are flickers with Johnny and Katie, with him, even sometimes with Billy. However, Reed can tell some part of his mom has been taken away and she won't be the same again.

This makes him feel like a child. He doesn't understand what divorce means. He doesn't understand why his mom isn't there all the time even though he likes Mac. These adults in his life can tell him it's not his fault, this is not on him, or there's nothing he can do about it but he can't possibly understand how it's not.

Reed is sorrier than he can possibly say.

He's even sorrier he can't talk to his mom right now without stepping on several more bombs.

—

**cocochanel **Ah, that first smile in the morning. Love. (heart emojis)

**HelloLouie** AYEEEE! That's my baby and I'm so proud ugh her everything. S/O to my bro **TheReedHellstromMusic** for introducing Zahra to Percy the Purple Lamb. Godfather came in clutch!

He takes in Zahra's changing face, her growing personality and how deceptively strong her grip is, especially where his hair is concerned. But he doesn't mind. Seeing Zahra aligns with Reed being in a man bun kind of vibe. That kid is really sweet and he finds that she's her own little person. If anyone talks to her, she will babble and coo back. It's hilarious. When he sings to her, Zahra lights up. He watches his friend hope his baby isn't riding the Baby Shark wave.

**TheReedHellstromMusic **you're welcome, Z. ;)

**HelloLouie TheReedHellsromMusic** She deadass cries if Percy isn't around. Lmao.

He taps a quick reply.

**TheReedHellstromMusic** your baby's smart, dude.

There are comments, and likes, with Instagram interactions but he will admit that Zahra finds herself in some part of his heart that won't fade.

Besides, what baby with taste doesn't like a purple stuffed lamb named Percy?

At least, Reed does something right even if it is helping a six-week-old baby hit her first smile.

—

"Hey."

"Hey," Billy greets, taking off his jacket and scarf. He heads into the kitchen while Reed walks into the living room.

"Where's my mom?"

"Today, she's in her kickboxing class. Really intensive stuff."

Reed furrows a brow in confusion. His mom is more than runner slash yoga type.

"Since when?"

"She told me about six months ago. Dr. Hastings recommended it. Well, according to her," Billy answers from the kitchen, sound of glasses being moved around him. Reed would ask if he can help but he seems to know where everything is. It's like he still lives here. "I learned my lesson when she was in the zone and I needed something from her for the kids. I think I scared her. I won't go through getting a shiner like that."

"She… punched you? No way."

"True story, Reed. Accidental left hook."

Reed grimaces, and would laugh if things did not fall into place for him. Of course, Mom is the type of person to protect her and herself kids. Reed swears his mother has the spirit of a pampered house cat, a wolf that stalks its prey in silence just before attacking and a fire breathing dragon all rolled into one. She lies to protect him, and it's insane because he can decide for himself, but he understand. It's one of the few it does.

"Ouch. Sorry."

Billy laughs, "It was cool. Made me look rugged and dangerous for a bit. Got to tease your mother about her fists of fury. Making her laugh was worth it."

He can still the memorial set up as it is and hear the clattering of the large framed photo of his dad hit the ground because of him. Reed feels a sense of a nervousness creeping up on him as he looks at the walls and windows. Do neighbours hear his parents argue as they see this window from the slits in their own blinds? Does Dad hit Mom in the kitchen Billy clatters around right now in to make himself look busy?

Reed is firm in his stance that he will never be someone's life partner. He doesn't need to be in a relationship with someone that is made legit by a piece of paper and government approval. He's got multiple rings on his hand and none of them will be someone's wedding band. He walks around the space between the couch and the coffee table, where Johnny's stuffed green dinosaur and Katie's stuffed tiger rests. He gets to the window seat, pane cool against his back and combs his hair back absentmindedly in thought. _He…grabbed my throat, _he recalls his mother's confession, engraved in his mind.

The wall.

The wall behind the hall closet.

Does it happen right there? Reed imagines the height difference between his parents. There are a lot of differences in his parents – a laidback dad who rarely gets parental and eases up and a straight-laced mother who likes rules and order. It's a weird line to toe but he doesn't have a choice. His blue eyes stay fixed on that space. His father's height towers over his mother but perhaps, being smaller means she's scrappy and fights back. Reed watches Mom at Newman when he stops by with her favourite Italian food because she's a machine.

He watches his mom negotiate deals and hold meetings with powerful people with calculating ease, but having her throat grabbed by the one person she supposed to be safe from must scare her.

Mom must fight back against him, her back hitting the wall and then a bang as Dad's fist comes close. Reed hears an imagined bang, a noise normal in households set ablaze by intense fights between couples and then Billy snaps him out of it, offering him a cup of coffee.

"Coffee with an obscene amount of sugar."

Reed takes the light yellow coloured mug, takes a careful sip as sweetness of the sugar and bitterness of freshly brewed coffee rests on his taste buds.

"Thank you."

Billy eases into the spot next to him. "Now, you're going to talk to me. Tell what's on your mind."

"That's…heavy," he replies, letting mug between his palms and warm them up. Reed sighs, using his hand to comb through his hair. It's a nervous tick. There's a curiosity, tugging at him in his head. He knows the who, the what, and he's standing in the where, but it's the why. Always the fucking why. He turns his gaze on Billy. "Your dad was a good man, one of the best dads ever?"

"Absolutely." A fond smile falls on Billy's lips. He adds. "John Abbott, for me, was the pinnacle of fatherhood."

"But you wouldn't say he's close to perfect."

Billy answers, a wry smile on his lips, "_I_ would. He wouldn't," he answers, shaking his head. "My old man never let us think that of him. I'm pretty sure my dad struggled with his stuff, you know. Just means he was human with very real problems. We all have vices to deal with."

Reed glares over the top of his coffee, and remarks darkly. "Your dad never beat on Jill."

"I'm sorry Phyllis did that at the memorial. It wasn't her call."

He takes another sip of his coffee, mouthful warm now. The steam evaporates.

People are sorry his dad is dead, sorry he's missing, sorry they don't have the answers when Reed never asks for their input. He hates that word. Sorry. It's a five lettered word with one syllable that doesn't even scratch the surface.

Reed shrugs, loosely, "She stays out of my space, then we'll be good. Phyllis isn't worth anything to me," he says nonchalantly, watching Billy's face for the smallest kind of reaction. He may be circling back to Mom, but he isn't stupid. There's always something there with Phyllis when it comes with Billy. It's just an observation on his part – a fleeting one but still there. He returns his glance to his coffee, absentmindedly tapping a string of notes on the mug that fall away as quickly as they materialize. "I just care about my mom right now. I gave her so much shit when I got here, and after we got back from Hawaii but there was all this…stuff. She was hurting all this time. I'm so mad at her for not telling me," he admits, quietly. His head pounds at the temple and he rubs at it. "I'm even mad at myself for not seeing it, Billy. Dad could have killed her."

"I'm there with you, but I know your mom. She's a proud woman. It's frustrating, but… it's her way. She builds walls and I know from firsthand experience that they're hard to break," he pauses, and Reed is surprised at the shift in Billy. He sounds, strangled as he grinds his words out. It's like for the first time ever, Billy speaks and Reed feels like he's talking around things. Reed notices the flushing in his skin, his eyes sparkling with his own tears. He clears his throat. "There's a lot of shame that comes with being in a situation like that. When Delia died, it was rough."

He's young when Delia dies. At the time, he's feeling worried because he's not the only boy at home or here either. He remembers when Johnny is born and understanding that his brother is adopted, but biology doesn't matter to him. Reed gets trapped in a memory, one of his best.

It's on one of his visits over to Mom's and she's sleeping over at Billy's. She's hanging out with him, chattering about him and he remembers her being the little grown up between the two of them. There's a plan about figuring out where Mom and Billy hide the candy stash: kitchen cabinet on the top shelf, under the upstairs bathroom sink, in their parents' briefcases, their cars although they can't get a key and not allowed. The laundry room. He's the drawing the map while she brainstorms more hidden places. Reed remembers his worry of not fitting not finding his place within the fabric of this weird family he has, long after Mom says it's okay to worry but not to. Delia stops talking mid-sentence and asks him what's the matter. He tells with her a crayon still in his loose grasp that Johnny's here and DJ is in DC so he doesn't know where he fits anymore. Reed remembers her laugh, the way she rolls her eyes and the brilliant smile she casts at him. _You're so dumb. Um, you don't have a sister. My dad married your mom. Daddy says I'm your stepsister, but I'll be just your sister. I don't have one either and Johnny's too little to play with us. I like you like my brother already. So, you're my brother now. There. Now, you fit._

"She called me dumb and she asked if she could be my _sister_, not my stepsister. Actually, no…" Reed corrects, smiling despite himself. "Delia told me she wasn't just my stepsister anymore. Just my sister and that was it."

"Ah, that's my girl. Her orbit and everyone's just spinning around it."

Reed chuckles. "Pretty much. I was young enough to remember that about her," his smile drops, uncomfortable in the resurgence of confusion he feels when Dad and Mac tell him that he'll still be going to his mom's, but for Delia's funeral.

"I was in pain, you know, because you never figure out how and why you lose a child. It's unnatural and I wasn't the best husband while in the reality of life without my daughter. I'm ashamed to say, but I left her. More emotionally than anything. Your mom loved Delia like hers. She was respectful enough to pull back and let Chloe and I handle our grief, but I didn't know how heavy hers was. I'd hear her sobbing in the shower. She kept that sadness to herself. Internalized it, and it broke us."

"You hurt her too."

"More times than I'm sorry for."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm telling you because you may not know how to talk to her. Chances are she doesn't know how to explain it to you either," Billy nudges his shoulder with his. "Don't leave things unsaid. Don't shut down and don't let her do it either."

"I'll try…I guess."

"I'm going to head out so are you going to be good holding down the fort here alone?"

Reed thinks about it. Yeah. He should be fine for the most part.

Reed stands and heads to the kitchen, and rinses the mug out. He dries, and leaves it on the granite counter. He heads upstairs, taking two stairs at a time just as Billy grabs his things and leaves.


	5. Part IV

**4.**

When Reed writes music nowadays, it's always in the minor because there's a lot of sad, heavy shit to sort through. It has to be sheer coincidence that every chord he makes has some discord, anger, and loss in it. Reed studies song-writing with the laser focus. Take an experience, an emotion, a person, a dream or even a nightmare and push it through a filter of an understanding to the musician. Mrs. Gallagher is hardest on him not because she's being difficult, but because according to her he lives through every possible variable of the human experience in its purest form for someone so young.

Reed figures out a strumming pattern of minors and majors. Just where his fingers as one lyric unfolds one after the other. One becomes part of the chorus. Another becomes a piece of the bridge, and others submit themselves to be the two verses. He makes one last adjustment on paper, plucks a guitar chord that Reed feels in his gut fit with the arrangement and vibe.

He finds that vocal note, puts the guitar notes together and begins.

"R.I.P to my youth / And you can call this the funeral / I'm just telling the truth / And you can play this at my funeral…"

—

He doesn't hear his mother pulling up into the driveway, doesn't hear the jingle of her keys and the turning of the locks and gears to open the door. Reed doesn't even know how his mom pauses at the music coming out of him and filling a space in the house she doesn't know she needs. Reed doesn't hear her pull off her jacket and take off her shoes, remembering the sharp ache at her side. He doesn't know his mother isn't just kickboxing a physical exercise or as a way of tension release. She's training for an actual fight so no one hurts her again. Reed doesn't know the hit to her side is accidental but realizing that it's nothing like when his dad lays his hands on her for the last time. Reed doesn't understand his mother is forcing her body to take a hit and absorb it so she can make her move. A quick hit that incapacitates her attacker – maybe even kill them – and brings to the surface brute strength and quick reflexes in this tiny body of hers.

Her trainer is a semi-retired fighter almost professional who is big and imposing, but really, a teddy bear who lives a relatively ordinary life. Wife. Three kids – all girls. Colonial style house.

Reed doesn't know his mother spends twenty minutes in the garbage, sobbing and screaming in her car. He has no idea as he plays right through his latest original song that his mother is changing, evolving and feeling a shift in the ground beneath her when she's the one people go to for strength. He certainly has no idea she practices at a gun range and successfully applies to carry and own a firearm. She fills out Federal Form 4773, submits to a background check in the state of Wisconsin and takes a one day gun safety class. Of course, Reed knows she hates guns when both of her parents and brother are registered gun owners. Guns are violent. Messy. She shudders at news stories of young children finds a weapon and being so fascinated by it, they shoot. The especially fatal endings turn her stomach.

As Reed's song takes up the nooks and crannies of the house and finds its way into a shadowed corner in her heart, he doesn't know his mother gets the call. The call that confirms the small yet powerful .45 caliber Glock 21 SF is available for her hands, for her finger to calmly squeeze the trigger and for her own survival and that of him, Johnny and Katie.

He'll never knows that when she holds that black compact firearm in her grasp, there's a rush of power, a surge of endorphins and thoughts churning in her head space that can't possibly live in the same space as her logical, rational thought process. He knows his mom is good at compartmentalizing because the sanity is bending at impossible angles, twisting around in a yoga pose she hasn't nailed yet. She has to be safe. _Everyone_ has to be safe. Reed doesn't see his mother wince and rub away another migraine. They're increasing in frequency and pain. He doesn't know that sometimes, it's as if she steps out of her body and this beating heart is a bruised yet beating, foreign object in her chest.

Reed won't know his mother cries more than usual and screams out her rage when there's nowhere to put it down or free it safely. No, Reed doesn't know all of that. He gets to the end, and the last chord and note hang in the air. Two knocks on his bright red bedroom door make the musical fog of his own creation dissipate. Mom smiles at him, and applauds. For whatever reason, it makes him blush. It's just a rough cut and he doesn't know if it's a song he will add to a list of recorded songs. It could be an EP, a mini-album or it's just him venting. Who knows anymore?

"Mom, hey," Reed greets, guitar still in his lap. "You're home."

"Yeah. I'm sorry I left so early," she rubs the back of her neck. "I just had to get a workout in."

"It's cool… I guess," he responds, trying to sound nonchalant but it doesn't sound that way to his ears. Then he finds himself annoyed, because pretending is what causes this. Playing pretend.

She gestures to his song writing notes and the guitar resting in comfortably in his lap.

"Actually, no… it's not cool."

She gets this guilty look on her face as she tucks a loose hair behind her ear. Most of it is in a ponytail and she's wearing a nice cardigan, skinny jeans when Reed expects her in a power suit, prepared to run into Newman roaring. Like a _I Am Victoria Newman, Hear Me Roar!_ type deal. Reed runs through many ways to approach her and simply blurts out, "I've been avoiding you, Mom. I… don't know how I begin to understand this," he sighs, shaking his head. "I knew you and Dad had issues but never this. I…almost shoved myself into this weird rabbit hole of looking up domestic violence stats."

Mom pulls up the desk chair and sits before asking him seriously. "What stopped you?"

"Zahra," he admits, unable to stop the incoming smile off his face. "She hit her first smile today. That kid…"

"You love her," she finishes his thought.

"I'm surprised at how fast that happened."

Mom sighs, wistfully, "God, babies are a wonderful surprise at that age. Fascinating, too. I can see how much it means to you being that little girl's godfather," she observes before she sniffles discretely, and tears spring to her eyes. She chuckles through them, wiping them away. "Sorry. I know. I haven't forgotten the no-tears rule. I didn't mean to start crying like this in front of you. I said everything was going to be okay. I promised you. I'm really sorry, Reed. I didn't mean to…" she looks away from him and as quickly as she breaks, Reed watches his mom just put herself together and manage a smile. It's barely there. "I was thinking of you at six weeks old and then I remembered that I have no memory of that time. There's a blank there."

"I know. Grandma told me the story. It's tied to how I got my name," he says, and the pain in her eyes isn't like anything else. If she's pissed off, he'll know, suffer through it and it passes. If she's sad about something, Reed knows to give her space. If she's short with him, she doesn't mean it because he's like that too. It's a habit he's learning to fix. "It must have been trippy to have a kid while comatose."

"I…don't know what to call it. You know, your dad started your baby book. Took pictures of you with an old polaroid camera. I think they were every day, so I didn't feel like I missed you growing up. He also took pictures of my growing belly at whatever week it was, brought me pickles and ice-cream, sang to you, actually loved…me…" she explains, voice getting softer and drifting away.

So, this is what it looks like to watch somebody swimming against a current so strong they may drown. No, Reed resolves, he's not letting her sink into some dark, quiet place.

A light threatens to flicker behind her eyes. Billy's voice sounds in his head. _Don't let her shut down. _

"Mom," Reed calls gently, as if tossing her a lifeline he doesn't know is enough.

"Hmm?"

"Where'd you go?"

"I…" she says, blinking and staring at him for a few seconds. "Reed?"

"Yeah," he holds her hand. It's freezing. "It's me."

"I'm just all over the place. I didn't mean to check out," Mom touches his cheek before taking her hand and placing it in her lap. "I'm sorry I pushed so hard when you came back," she whispers, and then says again. "I'm so sorry."

"I didn't exactly make it easy for you."

"Yes, well, I missed the first few of your life. Your dad got custody of you and… I don't know, I felt cheated. Mad. I _was_ mad and swore I'd never forgive your father for it. So, here you are nearly grown up and I realized I missed so many moments. I thought I could play catch-up. Raise the little boy you were, instead of getting to know the man you're becoming. You're so resilient," she says, and smiles for real which makes Reed offer one as well. To be fair, he doesn't make the effort to re-learn who his mom is either. It's not that he doesn't want to. It's more because moms and dads are just…there. There's supposed to be. They're supposed to be his parents. Reed figures the tension in the house is such Dad and Mac will solve and it's something he, Becca and DJ have to ride out. He doesn't know about them. DJ's shyness doesn't tell him much, and Becca is too young to understand anything.

Resilient.

Maybe kids aren't resilient at all. Sure, they're tough. But Reed likes to think kids are just smarter about detaching from grown up issue they can't process.

"You're so strong. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. I just wanted to protect you. Mothers do that."

Anger, although it's distant, lands somewhere his head. A red fog creeps in on his peripheral vision.

"Dad hurt you. It was his job to protect you. It was _mine_. You're a part of your kids so he hurt _me_. He was never abusive to Johnny and Katie, but he hurt _them_. If anything happens to you, it affects all of us. It wasn't Phyllis' job to put this on blast. How did she even know?"

Mom glances down and sighs, shakes her head. "It's a long story."

"But…you're not friends?"

"No," Mom says, sternly, and looks him in the eye. "Absolutely not! Look, I don't have friends. At least, any meaningful ones…" she softens a little, and shrugs. "I'm a socially difficult person. I own that. But I'm scraping the bottom of the social barrel if Phyllis and I end up genuine friends. She most likely came because your uncle asked her to," she exhales, and says what he's thinking. "The memorial was…hard."

Of course, it is.

What kind of idiot is he to make her sit through a service about the guy who hurts her?

"I know you did it for me."

This gets a genuine grin from her, "I did," she nods. "Because you needed to heal and get some kind of closure. Despite how I feel about your dad and what I'm going through, it wasn't about me."

"Wasn't about Phyllis either…"

"No," Mom replies, a flash of anger in her eyes, and then it's gone. "It wasn't."

She stands and winces, her hand touching her side. Reed's eyes widen as her sweater rides up, and he sees a bruise against her light skin. It's a little bigger than the size of a quarter. The size of a quarter. It's dark, irregular circle with edges that have lighter colouring and dotted around it. It's as if a silent firework sizzling to the bottom finally explodes underneath her skin. He moves his guitar aside and stands up, eyes drawn to the mark on his mother's skin.

"What happened to you, Mom?"

She adjusts her shirt, winces again and she's fine. Must be an out of sight, out of mind thing. If Reed has to be honest, it's not that. It's his mom in physical pain and just kicking down into that unknown place nobody gets to see. Guess when you're slammed and choked against one, you build a higher wall over whatever the pieces of a crumbled one. She smiles to reassure him, and adjusts her sweater.

"I'm fine. I just had a small incident at the gym. I'll ice it."

Reed panics, alarms that he suppresses before, loud now. A bruise can mean anything. In the short-lived flurry of Google generated pages, he almost wades into before stopping, he recalls the link between abuse and bruises. Domestic abuse victims may get bruises and lie about them. Normally, bruises are harmless. In abuse, bruises are dangerous. He's exhausted with the lies, with the conflicting stories, with the secrets, and with…this sinking feeling that there's more I don't know!"

"Reed, it's just a bruise—"

He sees tightly wound guitar strings stretch until they break. The mind is a powerful thing, he knows, and somewhere in his subconscious, his head is filled to the brim with music and monsters alike. A black grand piano plays minor chords, major keys and notes of dissonance until the whole thing erupts into flames. It's a whole pile of wood, charred ivory and the sheet music dissolves to ash.

"No, it's not!" he explodes and can't contain it anymore. The sound deafens him and then Reed sets off an aftershock. He can't take it back, can't press rewind and a new fresh wound among scars. "I'm scared you'll kill yourself!"

He watches his mom freeze, and then recoil as if she's hit by a monster truck.

Holy sh—

Time freezes. He can't seem catch any kind of breath and Mom flushes, the look in her eyes scares the shit out of him. It's as if Reed is on the edge of a lake. The water is clear, serene and if he looks closely enough, he can see all the way to the bottom. Then again, he takes a misstep and falls in, shocked by how cold this water is.

"Mom, I…" he stammers and it sounds like a croak. "I didn't mean it… I'm sorry—"

"Honey, I didn't know you felt this way."

"Well, I do. I'm…scared you'll kill yourself. I lost Dad and I have to accept it. I can't lose you, too," he says again, honestly with his heart palpitating. He needs a drink, needs a cigarette, needs to find air because there's none here. Not anymore. "Shit…" he curses like she's not in the room. "I can't do this…" he breezes by her, and grabs his phone. Reed takes brisk steps down the hall, down the stairs and goes into the closet for his coat and scarf.

"Reed! Wait!"

Her footsteps trail his, until she gets in front of him and stands at the front door.

"Mom, please. Move. I can't talk to you right now. I told Billy I'd try but I can't."

"You and Billy discussed me?"

"Yes," he answers, shrugging on his coat and wrapping his scarf around his neck. Reed can brace himself against the cold outside. That's predictable. Winters in Wisconsin are no joke. He's reminded of that and thankful his grandmother is healthy, recovery and alive. Emotional and psychological cold snaps are another story. He sighs, as her eyes search his. She's searching her face as they pool with tears. Great. He makes her cry. "I tried. I promised I wouldn't let you shut down. I'm so mad because Dad is physically not here, and then _Phyllis_ killed whatever I thought of him. I don't know what I'm going to tell DJ and Becca now. If anything happens to you… If I lose you, I lose both my parents and I'm a freaking kid! Johnny and Katie…" he hears his voice crack on the end of Katie's name. His little brother who makes everyone laugh and his little sister full of actual sunshine. What happens when the laughs stop and the house goes under grey skies. "Mom," he nearly begs, "move. I have to go."

"No!" she almost yells. She stands there, stone faced. "You don't say something like that and walk away," she then pins him to the spot with a glare and Reed knows he's in deep shit. "You don't get to reveal you're worried I'm suicidal and gloss it over."

Reed sighs exasperated with a roll of his eyes. "I was venting. Didn't mean it. I know you wouldn't."

"You're right," she softens, tone quieter. A tear falls down her cheek. "I wouldn't," she confirms, moving away from the door. He turns around and watches her drift off to the living room. She sits on the couch, Johnny's stuffed tiger in her lap. She shakes her head before glancing up at him. "The more I instinctively want to protect you, the worse it seems to get."

"I don't want protection," Reed rebuts. "It's cool you want to protect me from stuff. But I'm eighteen. When you handled my part in Grandma's accident with Mr. Ashby, I got that. This…" he trails off, unable to piece together what he's thinking. Reed's sure there's a special place in hell for people who kill their grandmothers or nearly attempt it. There's another for people who decide to be assholes to their mothers.

"The truth is there's a lot going on with me. I don't understand it. I just know that figuring out domestic violence is hard, especially for someone like me. Of course, I'm not exempt. Nobody is, but I never once in my life thought I would end up in that kind of situation. I don't love your dad. I don't hate him," she explains and then throws her hands up. "I'm just taking it one day at a time, Reed. That's all I can do, but I can swear to you, that not one of those days will have me taking my life. I've accomplished a lot in my life but you, your brother, your sister…" Mom smiles softly and it's genuine. "My children are my greatest accomplishment. I'm going to have dark days, sweetheart but I would never kill myself, okay?"

"Okay."

He stands, letting silence hang in whatever little air seeps back into the house. Reed still feels he has to go clear his head, think, do nothing, or maybe even if get to the prison and look his grandfather in the eyes and ask. Mom looks physically tired, skin pale and her eyes glassy. He wants offer to make her tea, to tell her to rest, take a nap, binge something, read, draw. Something. She stands and hugs him, and he hugs back, his head finding her shoulder. His phone chimes and he pulls it out from his back pocket.

It's a new text from Mattie.

_Crimson Lights in 10?  
Really need to talk to you. _

He furrows a brow and taps a reply. **OMW. **

"Everything okay?"

"I think so," he answers, pocketing his phone. "It's Mattie. She wants to talk. I'm going to head out to Crimson Lights. Is that okay?"

For the second time, Reed watches his mother rub her temple like she's fighting a stubborn knot that won't loosen up. She inhales sharply and then exhales as if she's suppressing her hurt and her ability to say that's how she feels. He wants to tell her he'll check in with her and he's left his Wisconsin driver's license in the drawer by the desk. She doesn't need to know about his New Hampshire one. He wants to let her he's leaving to be with a friend in the same messed up situation.

Her eyes are the most expressive part of her face which makes Mom a shitty liar. Reed is looking at her and she isn't staring at him. She's staring through him, at something it seems only she can see. There's a shift in her body, behind her eyes and he wonders how scared does he have to be. If he looks closely enough, Reed can see a blank slate – a blank canvas splattered with black, inky paint until it consumes the white parts.

Afternoon sunlight filters into the living room.

Then there's no slate. No dark canvas. No black paint. Just Mom, as she is.

She rubs at her eyes again, and something like terror sinks its claws into his stomach.

"Oh… are you going somewhere?"

"I told you I was just…Never mind," Reed starts, and then the words die on his lips. What the hell is happening to her? "Yeah, but I'll be back. I'm just worried about you. That's all."

"I know how to take care of myself. Go have fun. I'm just going to head upstairs and answer some work e-mails. With your grandfather unable to run the company, it falls to me."

"Of course, it does," he remarks, with an edge of resentment. Reed is sure to never be a corporate drone. It would be a high-powered version of an insane asylum but Mom thrives over there. He just wishes Grandpa doesn't crap on her even when it's obvious he does sometimes. He then adds, seriously, "You've always been the strong one."

"Someone has to be, Reed."

"I wish you didn't have to be all the time. Doesn't get it tiring?"

She almost smirks at him, and folds her arms, "Yes, it does. That's why I see a therapist. If I wasn't tired, feeling off balance, or even confused, she'd be out of a job. Go," she touches his shoulder with affection. "Have fun. Go be with Mattie."

"Okay."

Reed presses a kiss to her cheek, grateful she can joke about stuff when nothing is funny.

He promises to text her later and walks outside, closing the front door behind him. Reed glances up at the grey sky, and becomes aware of the clouds forming to resemble hands choking out the sun.


	6. Part V

**5\. **

When Reed gets to Crimson Lights he's thankful, because it's especially cold.

He makes it to the counter and it's Inez holding a freshly pot of coffee. She locks eyes with him and nearly drops the pot in recognition before recovering, and beaming at him. Inez goes to GCU, has three tattoos with the most visible one of a multicoloured feather taking up the space of her forearm. Her green eyes sparkle and he's thrown at she's cut her hair. It's long, and this double tone called ombre when he leaves. Now, her hair is purple. And short.

"I was wondering when I'd get my Reed Hellstrom sighting before you left for musical Hogwarts again," she jokes, as a greeting and then her face becomes solemn. "But I get it. Being in the Dead Parent Society hampers things."

He recalls Inez telling him on the patio that her dad dies of heart disease. It's unexpected, but after her quinceanera. _People who tell you the pain fades, it's bullshit. It doesn't. The pain is always there but you adjust. _They know each other because of the coffee, but she's her friend because she's on of the few who don't carry that whole dead parent thing around.

It's like they're walking around with stuff unsaid and keep it that way for sanity's sake.

"Yeah…"

"Well, Rookie, what's your poison today? Coffee, or Earl Grey?" Inez inquires, her red lips pulling into a smile. Ah, she knows his tea and coffee habits so well. He goes into his wallet and puts a ten dollar bill on the table. Nah, if Reed has any more coffee, he'll sprout wings, putting Red Bull to shame.

"I'll take that Earl Grey…and a medium herbal green tea for Mattie."

He cranes his neck and scans for her glasses, her curly hair, the Walnut Grove Student Body President who carries her life in a bag and an organizer in her hands like it's gold.

"Okay," Inez says, retrieving the cups and tea bags, "you grab a seat and I'll bring your orders over. Booth, table, or patio?"

"Booth, please."

Inez looks up from preparing his order and winks with a smirk. "Cool," she shrugs, "if you need something stronger, good ole caffeine and my ear to bend awaits."

"Thanks."

Instead of Mattie landing in the line of Reed's vision, he sees red hair.

Red hair belonging to a woman who seems to have this odd way of ruining his life. Fuck.

Hopefully, that red hair and the person with it will pass him. Seriously.

If there's some being up there, Reed's day won't absolutely go to shit any more than it does.

—

When Reed gets to New Hampshire for school, he doesn't know how to navigate things.

It could be because he's later than everyone and has to work twice as hard to get the credits and grades he needs to get out of here and graduate – of course, that's important too. Reed lets his eyes roam the expansive quad, reminding him of the ranch. It's warm but not uncomfortably humid. It's his second day of adjusting. He has no roommate but a large single room with a view of the White Mountains up ahead. The White Mountain School is closed because the day students are gone and he can't quite find the other boarding kids. Reed walks into the academic advising building, his peripheral vision catching sight of the Catherine Houghton building where his music class are going to be. He's excited to start his music theory class and work on the technical stuff.

First, he has to go through the whole credit transfer thing so he knows what he needs to work on. If it's up to him, Reed would make the choice to stay in Genoa City and understand things, but it's too frustrating. Part of him is scared of what he'll do if he stays. _Luck. Maybe that's all it is. Just luck. But one drink becomes two, four, five, _he hears Grandma's voice. In trying to understand what doesn't make sense, Reed is sure to take a drink and smoke a little more to decipher the Newman No Question Asked policy. Sure, he thinks as the New Hampshire spring breeze ruffles his hair, there are secrets in every family and he can't choose where he lands.

But he thinks this will be good for him. A change of scenery even though he has friends, family, places he'll miss and habit he'll work on changing. Reed isn't running away from anything as much as he wants to. He's running toward chasing his dream and working at the stuff that will make it a reality. Most people are weird about being the new kid, but Reed is relieved, no one knows him. He's not part of a powerful well-known family here. No one cares.

Reed buries his hands in the pockets of his Pink Floyd hoodie and walks inside.

He's just another name and number. Just another student coming from another town, another place. Nothing really special and he thinks with all the questions and hopes pilling up about his dad, Reed will learn to be okay and pour his energy into something meaningful.

It's like that quote from Meryl Streep Mom has nailed to the wall of her home office.

_Take your broken heart, and make it art. _

Reed finds nobody at the front desk, but then sees a guy in jeans, a sweater vest, hair cut into a faux smile that reminds him of Johnny, and these black frames that remind Reed of Buddy Holly. The guy turns a corner, a thick folder grasped in his grasp. The guy smiles, and extends his hand for Reed to shake.

"Reed Hellstrom, right?"

"Yeah," he shakes his hand, while eyeing that huge folder. "Um… do you need a hand?"

"Cool of you to offer, but nah. I got it. My gym membership says I have to. I'm Jared Gilmore. Call me Jared," he introduces, brightly, letting go and adjusting the load in his arms. "And yes, this beast of dead trees and bureaucracy is all about you. Moira is usually here, or Oliver, but they've abandoned ship today," he moves toward the hall from which he comes. "I'm your academic advisor. Walk with me."

Reed follows and Jared multitasks between giving him the short version of an autobiography Reed doesn't ask for and explaining things he needs to understand.

Jared backs into his mahogany office door so it opens. He steps aside, so Reed can walk into the one of the coolest decorated offices he ever sees. And he can't count how many offices he goes to. It's something in his blood but not in his future. But this. This is mind blowing. It's bigger on the inside and Reed is wondering how the hell a hammock manages to fit in here.

The academic advisor sets the folder on him on top of a filing cabinet near the farthest wall and sits at his desk, bouncing slightly on a big, blue medicine ball.

"I hate chairs, and I prefer to give students the _option_ to sit. Power dynamics."

"Johnny's right," Reed says, more as a thought. "This _is_ Hogwarts."

Jared creases a brow. "What?"

"Oh, um, sorry – that was supposed to be an inside thought. "My six year old brother, Johnny, thinks I'm at Hogwarts," he then feels that prick of homesickness he works at keeping away. Two days. It takes two whole days before he cracks. Ugh. Reed takes off his backpack, and lets his body sink into the couch for now. He's still new here, and as nice as Jared is, the guy could be moonlighting as an axe murderer. But he might as well be honest with the guy. He could picture Mom in his head telling him to mind his manners and listen to his teachers, and work hard. Reed glances down at the shoes, before raising his gaze to meet Jared's. "I actually miss him. I… miss a lot of people right now."

"Ah…" he replies, nodding slowly. Jared stops his bounce and looks at him seriously. "You're not the first to feel this way. Totally normal, Reed. I'm actually paid to listen to you, or sit in silence with you. I'd listen to you for free, but I'd be broke and homeless. One thing I'm never going to ask you is why you're here any given day."

"Why?"

"Because when I ask you that I'm making the assumption that you want to answer that. You may not want to. I want you to have some choice in the matter. There's this notion that academic advisors tell you what to do and that's it. It's not," Jared explains, smiling at him in a way that reminds him of his dad. It's crazy but Reed can't help but think in his gut – really, in his soul deep down – that his father is somewhere out there in the universe. He could be on the periphery, or right in front of him. Jared talks again. "It's a collaborative thing we got going here. I'll give you an example, since you're looking at me like I have six heads."

"No, I'm not…"

"It's okay. You're allowed to be weirded out. We _lean into_ weirdness here. I'll give you a choice right now. We can talk about what made you check out just now, or we can talk about the way in which institutions like merely see their students as a string of numbers and financial revenue…"

Reed exhales. "Um, honestly? Both of those choices really suck."

Jared laughs in amusement. "You know what _doesn't_ suck, Reed? Your candor. It's refreshing."

He has no idea why the way Jared's light green eyes glitter make him smile, but it does. It's a half-smile, a tentative one. Something that makes him feel like he puts his big toe into a pond that is cool on the surface, warm beneath even though Reed is a strong swimmer and doesn't mind the depth. He feels his face flush and resists the urge to question it or unpack it. He needs to ponder something else when he's about to question his own sanity.

"Alright, then," Jared grabs a pen from his desk and twirls it, once and then twice with the skill of a drummer. _Drummer's hands_, Reed notes and his heart races as he tries to get even breathing in between. _A drummer's grip on that generic blue pen. _Reed clears his throat, discreetly. "I guess, I'll begin by telling you that confidentiality is a thing between us always and it's a safe place. Cool?"

He nods, mouth unusually dry.

"Okay," Jared says, and stops twirling his pen as it lands deftly between his pointer and middle finger. "With that being said, I did have a very interesting video conference call with your mother. She's a…" he pauses, searching for the words, "…very thorough, dedicated parent who wants you to succeed while you're here."

"Dude. Just say she scares you. I won't be offended," Reed says, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly feeling very bashful. "That's the Victoria Newman Experience. Terror, and then everything comes afterwards. My mom likes rules and order. Really Type A, but she dances around the house to Prince, Pat Benatar and Wham and doesn't care. She… she hates it when I leave my stuff everywhere but she'll sit with me at a messy desk, edit my papers and help me out when I'm stuck right down to the stupid citation style. I only got an A in French because both of my parents spoke to me in it for two weeks straight. I miss my dad and can't play Redemption Song anymore because it was the last thing I played with him…" Reed admits, quietly, while Jared stares at him as someone who listens, and nods slowly. "I'm sorry. I'm rambling. I swear, I didn't mean to do this."

"What do you feel you did?"

"I changed my mind, Jared," he blurts out. Reed needs to do this. Actual work and shove GC and everything it means to him down somewhere into Alice's rabbit hole. Reed needs to put his feelings away in a little box, lock it away and shove it in some dark area in his head. It's not that he wants to forget, and he's not forgetting Dad. Not ever. But two days later, Reed is going to lose his mind. He doesn't want to be one of those kids who call home, asking to come home, two days into summer camp. When he wants to deal with his feelings, Reed will do it on his own terms. Take a walk. Write music that may or may not mean anything. "You said I have a choice, right?"

"I did."

"Okay, then…can we talk about my classes instead?"

Jared relents with a soft smile and understanding eyes.

"Yes. We can manage that," he nods, and moves over to retrieve the thick folder on the filing cabinet. Jared gets it, lays it out on the desk and spread everything out like a roadmap. "Alright. Let's see what Genoa City High credits you've attained are equivalent to the courses offered here. We can figure out a plan to college from there."

Reed nods, absolutely sure. This, he can handle. Everything else, he can't.

Scratch that. _He won't. Not yet._

—

The first thing Reed does when Phyllis calls his name is look around, not for Mattie. He knows she'll be there in the next five to ten minutes or so. Inez is asking if she should intervene with her eyes and he calls her off. She's like the older sister he never has, or the older sister he does have but knows in name only. Eve. He texts her a quick _Red Rash handled _ and catches her biting back a laugh and disappearing into the back to busy herself. He's forced to look up at an apologetic Phyllis standing in front of him. Or, something like being apologetic. It's not her thing.

"Uncle Nick and Billy aren't here. You can stop acting like you give a damn."

"Look, Reed," she sighs. "I really am sorry."

"For what?" he snaps, and Reed sees her cringe. "For telling me something that was not your business or hurting a lot of people while doing it? You didn't think of DJ and Becca because you don't care about them," he exhales, frustrated and glares. "And let me cut the bullshit and tell you, you don't care about Katie and Johnny either."

"That is not true. I care deeply for them," Phyllis says, softly. "I don't know…. I don't know why I did what I did, okay? I just sat there and I couldn't take it. Your mom and I are never going to be friends, but even I didn't want that for her. Some days, I don't like her if you want honesty from me. But no woman deserves to be treated that way. _Nobody_. Your uncle won't talk to me and well, Billy and I… that's a non-factor now, but I care about Johnny and Katie always. Them, your other siblings, they're all innocent."

Reed laughs, mirthlessly. "Oh. You're good… Everyone said you could play games and you play to win."

"Well, of course, I play for keeps," Phyllis replies, not denying it and shrugs. "Glad you're all caught up. Look, I know what's it's like to see a parent one way and have it all be a lie," she softens and Reed think she almost looks human. Almost. She sits across from him and he rolls his eyes. She clears her throat. "In the interest of full disclosure—"

"I don't care," he snarks. "Find your collateral damage somewhere else."

"—_my_ father was a kind man, charming, charismatic. He was also a cheat, and a liar who scammed hard-working people out of their life-savings. He destroyed families and then would buy my mother a new piece of jewelry like it was fine. He hurt people every day and abused my mother, manipulated my sister. I hated that she was so attached to him. I knew of it…" Phyllis pauses, and stands up. She stares him in the eye. "Long story short, I exposed it. I told the truth and lost everything I knew."

Is this the part where he says he can possibly understand and relate? Because while his godmother – it's beyond him and he says that all the sarcasm he can muster – loses her life, the situations aren't the same.

"It's not the same, Phyllis. That was your family mess. You expose it? Who cares?" Reed argues, wishing for a strong shot of Jack Daniel's, although he's realizes that bourbon in New England is not awful. Reed wouldn't even mind absinthe. The stuff tastes like jelly beans with the faintest hint of black licorice but he'd be wasted after the first sip, or knocked out blind. "This had nothing to do with you. Why were you even there? You weren't supposed to be… My dad and yours are _nothing_ alike."

Phyllis says nothing, observes him for a moment that make Reed seem as if she has more to say.

"Who knows why anybody does anything?" Phyllis remarks. "You're another person in this town who will never believe me when I say it. I'm truly sorry for what I did at your dad's memorial."

"Hey, Phyllis?"

She turns around. "Yes?"

"You're right. I don't have to believe you."

Phyllis smirks at him, knowingly. "Fair enough. Don't trust anyone all the way, Reed," she advises, as if in speaking to him in code before leaving. Does she know something he doesn't?

Mattie appears, walking up with their drinks and confetti cake, ready to eat with two forks. Reed shoots her a thankful glance and she smiles, brightly.

"Hey, Reed," Mattie greets. "Sorry I was late. Sam was in a mood and then traffic wasn't that great."

"Okay, I'm going to go. Reed, Mattie…"

"Goodbye, Ms. Summers."

—

Phyllis walks away without her coffee, and out the door before Reed releases a cleansing breath. Mattie hands him his Earl Grey tea, while she takes her green tea and thanks him for ordering what she needs. She sets the piece of vanilla cake, with custard filling and rainbow sprinkles down between them and sighs.

"Are we celebrating or eating cake because we're feeling like shit?" Reed questions, noticing Mattie's in the mood and not her little brother. She shrugs off her bag, and hands him a fork as he sips his tea. The sugary sweet and sourness of the lemon is the perfect balance. His three dollar medium tea in a portable tea is more balanced than anything else in the last year. Jesus, this is sad. Mattie adjusts her glasses and dig her fork into a corner on the dessert.

"Both," she answers, through a mouthful. She pushes her glasses up to her nose and something like frustration and annoyance comes across her face. He knows it well, as her ex-boyfriend and now, as her friend. One of the closest he has considering the fact that she comes close to understanding. It's nice to not have to say anything to her, but she gets it. Her mom and his dad are both lost. In different ways, but still, lost. "I saw my mom. It's good _and_ bad."

"What happened?"

"I lied to my dad and told him I was taking the day off to catch up on some student council stuff a few towns over. She gave me the keys to her family's cabin while her parents were in LA. Her brother was in college," she explains, glancing at the table before holding his gaze. "So, I did it. I… I slept over at that cabin, call my dad and told him we were doing team building stuff that day."

"And your dad and Charlie bought that?"

"Yes, only because the student council lied in solidarity with me to pull this off, and well, I've never had a reason to lie to anyone. You know, I've had to step up and take Mom's place when Dad's at work late. I intern over at Hamilton-Winters in the legal department now. It's hard. It looks like I have my stuff together, but it's…"

"I know, Mattie."

"Mom has a few more months left in her sentence. That's the good part. I drove up from that cabin while 'team building' was happening, and drove to the prison. My grandfather didn't even know and he lives half an hour away," she finishes. "That's how badly I needed to see my mom. She knew right away nobody knew I was there. The bad part is prison has changed her. She's more closed off and that's fine… When you're institutionalized, survival instincts kick in. Logically, I understand, but… I just wanted my mom. The weird part is," she begins, confused and Reed's interest is piqued, "I wanted to know why my dad stopped visiting. She got really silent for a minute, smiled and told me it was just…painful to see him."

"Well, was like when that stuff with your dad and Juliet down?"

This cake is really good.

"No. This was different. She told me she was happy to see me and loved my college essay, and then she'd tell me how she was doing and feeling better to be doing something to help the other women while getting to know them. Then I'd tell her about Charlie, Sam, Dad…and when I mentioned that, she would clam up, and act like everything was normal…"

"Like they're protecting you when it's really annoying you?"

"Yes, exactly. I just wish they'd be honest. I already know my dad will be furious with me for doing this, but I've mentally prepared for it."

"Well, my mom and I got honest…after the memorial and everything," he remembers the conversation that unravels and sends him here. The drifting in and out of a place Reed sees his mother enter and exit. The stuff he keeps quiet until he can't anymore, and they are roaring, deafening him and cutting his mom down to a place inside that shows there's a chink in Victoria Newman's armor of ice.

"Oh… that's what Ms. Summers was talking to you about?"

"Yeah. Phyllis tried to apologize and I didn't buy it. Not when I was up all night and couldn't wrap my head around knowing what my dad…did," Reed confesses, quietly, feeling mildly nauseous. He's not aware of it but the teas are forgotten with half-eaten confetti cake, two forks stabbed in its layers. All that's left is him, her and somehow Mattie's hands intertwined in his across the table. It makes Reed feel safe. She makes him feel safe. He swallows thickly. "My mom is so messed up that she's blanking out. It's like we're talking and then she zones and she comes this blank, and then when she comes back, it's like it didn't happen. I…told her I'm afraid she'll kill herself."

"Wow."

"I can't even believe that came out of my mouth. It did, and it kind of…hung there."

He's afraid to be one of those musicians to descend into madness when it's just around the corner. Or, in his blood. Reed's terrified he'll be one of artists to put a body of work with the most troubling yet honest things ever. He'll be successful, powerful, even be described as someone who speaks to the angry, disillusion masses when he's actually a fraud himself. A phony. A label's puppet and Reed Hellstrom will be a name held with some kind of godlike reverence because of a kid, who lives tortured and troubled but dies young and peaceful on his own terms. Reed is certain to never, ever die young that way. He doesn't have the guts to do it anyway, but too many people will be hurt by that. Some more than once. Can't have that on his conscience.

"Domestic violence does things to people. Trauma, sometimes PTSD, anxiety, disassociation…" Mattie explains, gently, never letting go of his hands. She holds his gaze and never breaks it. "I believe in science and the law, but I also believe that we need to be there for our mothers. I think my mom is this perfect super mom who can do it all."

"Yeah… my mom is tough. I heard the story of my birth and I thought it would be like every one…"

"Really?"

"Mhm. Long story short, my parents were engaged before I was born and this explosion happened. My mom was comatose from it. My dad says he lost his mind that whole time and never left her side, and sang to her...well, us. It goes so bad for her that my grandparents almost went to court to decide if they had to get me out, or wait. It was between me and her. It never came to that, but my mom had me while in a coma. It's hard for me see her like that, but I like to think she fought for me in a way."

There will always be residual issues with the breakdown of his parents' marriage. The custody stuff when he's little. Growing up with a dad, a stepmom, two young siblings while his mother resides far away with visits few and far between. It's a hump Reed can't quite get over and maybe he'll be ready to talk to Jared about it. One day. Or, he'll just talk about it with his mom. Or, it's one of those situations where he tells no one and somehow, he figures it out. Reed doesn't know.

"My mom's going to live with this stuff, just like yours will live with the accident."

Mattie doesn't get mad at him. They're beyond that and he's thankful.

She nods, "Exactly," she lets go of his hands, and smiles at him with resolve. It's the kind of resolve, he swears will have Mattie protesting any and all of the injustices of the world. But no mass protest today, just a small one against the strong emotional current he finds himself swimming against, "which is why I propose a pact."

Reed takes another sip of his tea. It's warm now, bordering on cold.

"A…pact?"

"Mhm…" Mattie says, with a different gleam in her eyes. "How about…" she trails off, brainstorming. He can practically see every cog and gear in her mind, whirring in her head, "…next time we're feeling really awful about our parents, we take a break from whatever we're in the middle of whatever we're doing and just…hang out and make it a parent-free zone."

"Workaholic bent on saving the whole world while blindfolded, Matilda Ashby is suggesting…downtime?" he feigns shock. He narrows his eyes. "Who are you?"

"Still Mattie. And no, I still don't waltz," she replies with a playful glare before they dissolve into laughs and it feels great. It feels weird to laugh when nothing in his life says he should. But with Mattie, she's one of the few that don't question it. "I think I realized how much as we want to understand our parents – and I have to know everything – we just can't understand everything. I guess, not until we have children somebody."

Reed is a godparent, but that doesn't count. It's not the same thing.

"I don't even know who I'd be as somebody's dad," he confesses. The idea crosses his mind, hypothetically, of course, but Reed doesn't know how he would be as a father. He likes to think he's going to be a good one – one that is smart enough to teach his kid how to be a good, kind decent person who can make mistakes because it's part of being human. He shrugs. "I don't know. I don't even think I'll be the type to get married."

Mattie's face gets thoughtful. She's quiet.

Finally, she speaks. "I'm not against marriage. I'd love to wear a dress and have my dad give me away, wear the gorgeous diamond encrusted hair accessory belonging to my grandmother… all of that. But being married is a choice for me now," Mattie explains and then says seriously. "I do know that I'll use my maiden name and never take my partner's name."

"Well, it's 2019, but what if your partner wanted to take on _your_ last name?"

"I still wouldn't except that because if I'm in a relationship with someone, we're equals."

_Equals_.

"You're still never gonna be about the bullshit, huh?" Reed observes, in a quiet kind of awe and respect. It takes him back to why he dates her, why she is appealing and makes him realize that he messes up being her boyfriend and hurts her in ways, he still regrets. But he's grateful he's still friends with Mattie because it's everything to him. "Where have you been all my life?"

"Astute observation, Reed," she says, and smiles at him in _that_ way. "I've always been right here."

"Even during…?"

Mattie nods, holding his hand again, the fingers interlocking.

She confirms what he asks himself sometimes but can't quite answer and doesn't try to anymore. But here he is with her.

"Yes. Even then."

She stands up, and slides next to him and then kisses him. There's always the abuse stuff with this dad, the fragility with his mom that confuses and scares the hell out of him, and the silent questions of his own capabilities linger. Then there's Mattie. Mattie, who walks this path of loss with him, and doesn't run away screaming when she has every reason to. There's Mattie who he kisses differently than Kendall, and whose curls, loose and wild, find themselves intertwined with his fingers. When she pulls away, a soft pink colours her cheeks and Reed can't help but touch her face. There's something about her. Reed can't describe it, or put a name to it. He only knows how he can react to it and does so when a loose curl falls and he pushes it back. Is it love? No, probably not. He's only eighteen and admits he doesn't know what love really means. But there's friendship always and yet Reed can't help but recall how she sounds as they make out between the shelves of the university library. She presses a kiss to his mouth, fingers in his hair near Anna Karenina and he pulls her close by her waist, peppering her neck with kisses near War and Peace.

All of those emotional physical sensations crawl back to the surface as he stares into her eyes. He can feel her hand on his thigh, suddenly aware of the friction in his jeans. She bites in her bottom lip thought before saying, "Okay, let's get out of here."

Reed understands what she means.

"Mattie, wait. I get it and trust me, I…want this but… Sorry, I don't want to sound like a douche."

Mattie's eyebrows knit in confusion, light annoyance settling on her features but she isn't annoyed with him. Okay. Good.

"Reed, I'm a big girl. It's my choice. It's always going to be my choice. The more I ponder it, the more I think people make sex to be this thing that shatters the whole earth," she says, and then shrugs. "I used to be one of those girls."

"Those…girls?"

"The ones who swore to be a virgin up until marriage. Then, I met someone and then I wasn't. I told you about Devin, didn't I? Well, I dated him and then it happened after school in the back of his car, so it wasn't a bed of roses or anything, but it wasn't and I didn't feel any differently. I didn't choose the circumstance and I really didn't choose the place. I wouldn't have, but it happened for both of us," Mattie explains honestly, when Reed swears she doesn't have to. He's one of those dickheads who thinks sex in the booth of a coffee shop is fine. "But it's one of the few times I felt in control. It's not as taboo as people make it. Did you date anyone? You must have."

Well, it depends on how the word date is defined.

Reed dates one girl, Annie, for a few months. She's a classical pianist and her poetry is really beautiful, her prose going into his ears spoken in that naturally breathy tone of hers and leaving him mesmerized. She's as comfortable on the stage of poetry slams as he is performing weekly on Open Mic Night at The Blue Note, a musical club slash bar a ten minute walk away from campus. When he breaks up with Annie, Reed develops this weird crush on his English teacher, Ms. Nielsen, and he swears she reciprocates, her gaze toward him a little more meaningful when she recites lines from The Tempest but it's always covert because it can't be anything more. Reed tells himself he's making it up in his head.

It never quite goes anywhere. He knows that because she kisses him one day in an empty classroom, and of course, returns it. And then it goes to that place where it's just a locked classroom, turned down blinds and sex that is frantic but needed. Reed has been stumbled in a dry wasteland all term and here arrives this beautiful older woman with piercing blue eyes, freckles, and hair between honey blonde and gold to give him water to soothe it. Something to satisfy the growing craving for her, made worse by the scent of her perfume.

She needs something. Fulfillment. Clarity. Joy. She smiles at for real and tells him, she gives that to her for a fraction of time and she's grateful for it. For someone as thoughtful, introspective yet with a cool kind of energy she can't help but want to be wrapped up in. With his heart hammered in his chest and her eyes welling up with tears, she confesses she wants him and just for this one moment, he can have her too.

Ask him why and Reed won't be able to answer it, but he'll say that he doesn't regret sleeping with his married English teacher in that one classroom nestled in the long hallway of one of many large buildings. He can't forget how broken his name sounds as she bends, and arches, feeling her tighten around him and on the brink of coming before he says her name – Claire – in the middle of his own ecstasy.

Then there's Josie. The girl he hooks up with randomly at that festival in Maine.

He nods. "Yeah. I did."

"And we've been able to maintain our friendship. We did better and fixed it."

Reed's mouth quirks upwards. "Hell yeah, we did."

"We're going to be friends after this, but we've already dealt with all the weird stuff. Unlike your mother and my father, we actually don't despise each other. They'll kill each other. We won't."

It's funny because it's true. Must be why Mr. Ashby hates him. Transference or something weird shit like that even though he won't ever do anything to hurt Mattie and covers Charlie's ass with the hit-and-run.

"True."

Mattie kisses him, longer this time and it leaves Reed wishing it lingers, just a little longer. Her brown eyes dance under the coffeehouse lights.

"Okay, Mattie," he concedes, returning her kiss. She smiles against his mouth. He pulls away, taking her hand and her fingers curl over his. Her palm is warm and softly against his. He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses the knuckle. Force of habit. It's one he doesn't want to break though. He can never. "Lead the way."


	7. Part VI

**6\. **

There's no heart wrenching sob story, no life changing moment that sends her life course into unchartered territory. She can't piece together this story of abuse under her family roof even though she knows the ghosts of trauma and abuse to linger generations back, more concentrated and horrific than the last. She knows the stories. Some of them are true. Some of them are exaggerated lies. Some of them legends that never leave her ancestral country of Sweden. There's nothing dark living and breathing in her house. Her parents are the king and queen of mid-town suburbia although there's nothing pretentious about them. Her older brother is a golden haired, mischievous prince with an uncanny knack for Hide and Seek while she doesn't call herself a princess. Even now, as an adult woman, the thought makes her lip curl up in amusement. A princess? Her? Hardly. No, there's a princess four houses down he likes to tease and make miserable. Her brother is the social butterfly, craving and thriving off of attention others throw his way while she stays quiet, observes, while retreating to her father's library and reads everything voraciously. She reads, understands, feeds her growing intellect especially when it's the gothic literature of life and death she craves the most.

As her brother's circle of friends grows, hers diminishes. She doesn't know how to make friends. At least, the ones that don't reside in her books of old and the intricate diagrams in an old edition of Gray's Anatomy, or non-fiction writings of one thinker or philosopher. The literature changes the course of her life in small ways and keeps it interesting and colourful. Her dirty blonde hair looks like gold under the sunlight that streams into the spacious living room. She remembers spending her teenage years here in this house her fourth uncle-by-marriage builds and leaves to her paternal aunt after his death. She's lost count. She can't unravel it anymore, and her aunt's husbands end up dead after the words, _I do_, their signatures on life insurance papers seem to her as if the ink is in blood. In a way, it is, and she can't help but smile at the dark humor of it all. A black widow, they call her.

Her eyes travel over the high ceilings. The light fixtures are new. Framed pictures of faces she remembers animated and alive, others she crosses paths with at family reunions, and there's a face or two etched in her mind within the context of a funeral or two. The brown coloured sofa and sectional is the furniture she calls most. Her little body curls up in the darkness, as her aunt and whatever man amuses her make an upstairs symphony of their own. This brown seating section is where she has her first sexual experiences with a man several years her senior, another with a woman she's obsessed with – not in a stalking kind of way, but more in a way that satisfies her starving curiosity and what new quirks give her personality new shadowed facets. She discovers that hey, she's underage and can't drink but she's into kink and quite dominant that way and a little torture goes a long way, in terms of fun. Fun means a lot of things. She clears her throat, quietly, to keep a chuckle down and becomes annoyed with herself. She's not here for that. She isn't supposed to be here at all.

Hazel eyes sweep over the hallway still there and the passageways along the walls, down the basement, deep underground to the secret room she discovers by accident on a study break. While her family is back in the mid-west, she is here in the underbelly of this grand house in Las Vegas. It's as if she stumbles into caverns no one else is supposed to know about. A twisted sense of pride swells in her chest. She's made a discovery. She's a sixteen-year-old girl in college with pre-med aspirations. A teenager in a sea of adults. In a secret room in the underground of her aunt's home, it's where she discovers long buried aspirations as well.

—

A man is chained to the wall. He's bloody and bruised, one eye swollen shut. His one blue eye darts around and locks on her. He opens his mouth to speak, but wheezes and the force of a cough deep in his lungs forces him to his knees. Sounds like a lung has been punctured by a cracked rib. Hazel eyes document his dark hair, the dark face stubble with the hint of grey, and the pained look battling with contempt and rage.

"Help… me!" A groan, a cough, a splattering of blood on the floor. "I'll… kill you, Bonnie!"

In her adolescence, she takes in the stone brick, how big this space is. Maybe for the acoustics. Is this place soundproof? She wants to know and makes a mental note to ask Bonnie later. She watches this powerful, heavy-set man, broken. He turns that one good eye on her, pleading as he stands up with great effort. The cuff chain looks painful.

"You gotta call the police, kid. Please…" he croaks and wheezing. _"Bonnie!_ You're dead!"

She wonders over to the wall, runs a hand along a section of it. There's rough caulking, soft insulation, and the wall seems to be framed. A mental tugging in her mind makes her glance upward. Seems like this is a little lower than a basement and just a layer above hell.

"It's soundproof," she diagnoses, matter-of-fact. "We're too far down to get back up."

"Get us… out of here," he says, straining against his pain and discomfort. He changes his tone and demeanour, almost begging. "Listen. I have a girl… Just your age. Let me go home to her."

"Why would I do that? I don't know you."

"You don't know Bonnie, either! You have no idea what shit you're playing with, kid," he spits, face contorted in pain and anger now.

If she calls the police, this man talks. Bonnie goes to jail. She loses the house she grows to love, and is sent back to Genoa City, a town that doesn't understand her. Loses the ability to continue her education. If Bonnie goes away, she loses a woman who loves her enough to understand her and her proclivities, the monsters she gets to know, the ones who peacefully co-exist with her. She loves her father, misses her big brother, and can't be around a mother she's disconnected from.

The latch twists. The door opens and that female voice she is accustomed to – far more than her mother's if she's being honest – takes up the space in the room. Bonnie sounds happy as she steps in, locks the door because she wants to stay and Bonnie knows better than to ask. Bonnie places her hands on her shoulders a little too firmly. Yes, she's irritated but she doesn't have the mental capacity to process that. Not when her mind is racing with _this_.

"Good. You're awake," Bonnie says, closing the door to this underground space.

"It's not my fault my side of the family wants to protect my son, you bitch!"

"The weather is lovely today," Bonnie sighs, contentedly, ignoring the venom. She finds her fascinating, terrifying even though she, herself, isn't scared. "The sun is shining and, Joey, I tell you, as far as you can see, the desert stretches out. Blue skies and a gentle breeze that just blows just right. Just enough for a kid to fly a kite," she produces a black gun, a chill in her voice and murder in her eyes, dark as her hair. "I can't take _our son_ to fly a kite! All you had to do was give up your parental rights but you got greedy and went for sole custody. You had one job! It's unnatural! It's wrong! I'm his mother! My little boy is supposed to be in Vegas with _me,_ not in the trailer trash subsection of Chicago! You are no better than me! You piece of…" she clears her throat, smiling again but she observes one could slice their palm open on its edges. A thrill runs up her back at the skin being punctured, veins being cut, the dark blood welling to the surface and running over and then the intricate stitching afterwards. "He'll be crushed losing his father, but I'll help him through it as his mother. I'm going to make it all better. I'm going to show you what murder looks like…"

"You said you loved me, you crazy broad…"

A cruel cackle escapes her lips. "Oh, I do love you which is why I have to get rid of you. I'll love you more as a decomposing corpse in the desert." Bonnie's eyes flick over to her and asks her to come, really look at this man in front of her. "I don't think you've properly been introduced to my niece, have you?"

The man says nothing.

"I said, _have you_?" Bonnie repeats, with a slight growl and fires a shot to the thigh. A dark red stain blooms, staining the dark denim of his dirty, worn jeans. That bullet is small enough to nick the femoral artery, not damage it. Death can still occur, but it will be painful and slow, which is most likely what Aunt Bonnie is going for. "Answer me, Joe. You're not disrespecting my niece, are you?"

His skin turns white.

He's shaking, trembling involuntarily.

Shock from the blood loss. She thinks blood pressure may be dropping. She can't tell.

"N—no. Can't say I have…"

Aunt Bonnie smiles brightly. "Good. Joey Stinnett, meet my sixteen-year-old niece, Diana Hellstrom," she introduces as if it's a family cookout, a warm visit to a house she's supposed to be comfortable.

Diana feels a cold, heavy gun being slid into her grasp. Her thumb knows to cock the gun. Her pointer finger knows to rest on the trigger. Diana should experience terror, panic even disgust and physical nausea. She doesn't.

Oh, Zack is her younger cousin. Another son Aunt Bonnie has, but really doesn't. Seems to be a pattern stemming from her aunt's string of affairs and failed marriages. She experiences a de-tangling of who the key players are. Assess that there's no chance of this man getting help. If he does, he talks, and she loses her stability. When she loses her stability, it means Diana has to put her impulses on a leash and her bad habits in a box to be locked away.

"I know, sweetheart," Bonnie whispers behind her in her ear. "You have…tendencies most are scared of. They don't understand it and won't. Your mind is wired differently, but it's a beautiful mind," she fingers her hair, "for a beautiful girl. Let me help you, Diana."

"How?"

The beasts in her mind start to rouse themselves from a slumber hard to comprehend, even with her intellect. It's hard for a girl who is so intellectually ahead of a curve, her teachers can't place her anywhere. She skips so many grades that at 14, she graduates from Walnut Grove Academy with a glowing academic record, it's almost blinding. She's the youngest graduate from that school to date. It doesn't matter to her if that distinction is remembered or not. Diana asks to live with her Aunt Bonnie in Nevada. It's where she is granted admission for university and thrives there in a manner that leaves her fulfilled. Free.

"You're fearless. I see clearly what you can do, what you _want _to do. So…embrace it."

Diana looks at her target, raises her arm to level the gun to hit the fatal shots because _Gray's Anatomy_ doesn't lie to her. Bodies are different on the outside, but placement is always the same internally. She closes an eye to adjust her vision and prepares her stance to absorb the recoil from the crack of the shot. The bullet exits the chamber, and finds a spot in the middle of the head. His head snaps back, his eyes roll back into his head as he collapses, a river of blood streams out and Diana takes a step to realize pieces of skull bone and brain matter litter the corpse like glass and glitter.

Diana gives the gun back to Aunt Bonnie, suggests dismemberment and soaking the pieces in acid as the best method of disposal because of course, she has people for this. She calmly says she has an essay to continue writing for her professor and retreats. She follows the path back up to the surface, the normal looking part of the house. She goes upstairs to her room, and leaves her work and research on the desk.

There's a physiological reaction – a rush, a release of oxytocin and endorphins – from the metallic smell of blood more than anything. Blood only smells of metal due to iron. It's powerful and intense. It's the closest Diana will come to wrestling with her body and her mind. She needs a release. An air pocket to give her lungs a chance to expand and constrict with every inhale and exhale.

The solution isn't complex at all. It's as simple as leaving the house to have sex with the neighbour's seventeen-year-old virgin son for the next couple hours. Eric's not her type of her guy and she expect nothing from him. Doesn't want anything from him except what he will have no choice but he will inevitably give her. She's just selfish, and this boy ready and willing underneath her, will be another warm body for her to dissect and break.

—

Diana stands in the living room of the house, and touches a framed photo of her father, JT and her as children. JT grins into the camera, while she does not. Sounds about right. She remembers her mother chastising her about only smiling when she reads. _Diana Alice, please get your nose out of that book and into the world more. You have such a pretty smile. Wish we'd see it more on that soft face. _

Diana. Her father says her name comes from an ancient Roman goddess of the moon, the hunt and fertility. She's conceived on a full moon and born on another one, nine months later. _You're my moon child. Your mother may not understand why you're so internal. I do_, he says. Her mother most likely agrees because she's one of the 750 million viewers tuned into a young Lady Diana Spencer marrying Charles, Prince of Wales on a warm July in 1981.

That, and her mother may fawn over the British royal family just a tad. JT calls her Alice while she's in utero, he tells her the day she leaves for Nevada and ultimately for college, because it's the only name she responds to in the belly and well, there's _Alice In Wonderland_. JT is the only one who still calls her Alice as a nickname, she recalls with nostalgia for the brother she has then and the nephew she does have now. _Reed._

Her name is full of binaries and ironies that sprinkle her whole life. Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon and the hunt. She who swears to protect in life in a shroud of white and steals it in another of black. Diana Alice, the girl who is named after a princess who dies young and a girl who tumbles into an abyss of the strange.

Diana Alice Hellstrom, the woman who is both a protector and predator.

Just depends on the situation and the context, she supposes.

—

An old clock ticks.

"Bonnie!" she calls, her voice echoing. Diana is about to go looking for her eccentric, yet dangerous woman who has a hand in raising her, but the woman turns a corner from the kitchen, carrying a black and silver urn. "There you are."

"Yes, Diana. Here I am," Bonnie replies, her voice taking on a gravelly tone from years of smoking. She mounts the urn on a spot on her mantle. "Just had to take care of Zack here," she taps the surface, and presses a soft kiss to it. "Roman hung himself in prison and saved me the trouble of ordering him killed. Proactive. Owen and I are estranged with good reason. He's got a good life, happily married and I have grandbabies. Three of them," she recounts, more to herself and Diana lets her. Grief is tricky. "Derek is content to be a nomad, always running, my traveller, but this kid…" she touches the urn. "My last one. Zachary was mine. He wasn't into college even though he went, but his business aptitude and potential," she recounts, tears in her eyes, "was limitless. Damn, that kid was hungry."

"I… I'm sorry, I didn't know him."

Diana only knows this cousin of hers through news reports of a sex ring being dismantled, one that nestles within the bowels of Newman Enterprises, takes up ad space in Brash and Sassy's online presence and calls itself Designer Date. She hears this sex ring is a financial success and a behemoth of moving parts until one girl goes rogue and her cousin snaps.

"Life is funny that way, isn't it?"

Diana grows pensive. "Perhaps…" she touches the silver moon-shaped pendant that rests flat against her chest, fingering its crescent form. It's a celestial object that hangs in the sky, the one thing that triggers mythical lycanthropy and makes humans beasts, and for her, is the shape of the grim reaper's scythe. Bonnie wipes at her eyes as Diana remembers Reed will be back in New Hampshire next week and hasn't stoked the fridge for his weekend visits.

"Shit… Bonnie, I have to get home. Why am I here?"

"Right," she claps her hands. "I was getting to that, and then I had to clean Zack's urn…" she trails off, and waves a hand, dismissively. "It doesn't matter anymore. Come with me."

—

Bonnie's dark eyes glitter with child-like anticipation, and Diana has no choice to follow this woman down in the darkness again. Years wear this place down. Time warrants it to be upgraded and inspires her to have a shadowed room just like this in her own house on a hill, overlooking her city, the hospital more prominent. Diana looks at Bonnie with careful curiosity. That familiar shiver finds itself slithering by her back, coiling itself around the column of her spine. The latch is the same. She closes her eyes for a brief moment, remembering the turns and number of clicks it took to get to the inside. She opens her eyes, resting her forehead against the cool door before turning the latch and locks.

"I'm not fond of guns."

Bonnie nods, placing the black semi-automatic with silencer in her palm and closes the fingers over the handle. "I know, which is why everything _else_ is at your disposal."

"What am I working with and who's in there?"

"Long story short, I need this girl dead. Her name is Kimberley Lewis. She helped one of the girls involved in my boy's business get away after killing him," Bonnie explains with an undertone of venom and grief. Diana listens intently. She can't help it. She can't control it any more than she can control her dominant and recessive genes. Diana can't control the euphoric rush she gets as a child when she kills a dog JT and his friends love by beating it with a shovel until it howls and whimpers no more. While JT mourns that neighbourhood pet, she buries herself in the world of _Where the Wild Things Are_. She doesn't understand why that dog dying is sad. Isn't death part of life? Besides, Brittany Hodges will get another one. She has a lot of nice, shiny things.

As an adult, Diana understands all she wants is quiet. Solitude is still very valuable to her.

"Designer Date?"

"Mhm. Online dating thing…" Bonnie nods, absentmindedly. "This girl was far too easy because she's not my target."

"Why do you have her then? Go with your intended target."

"Nah," Bonnie smirks. "Kimberley helped transport a girl across with the border to Canada. That young girl has a life in Canada, although I'm pinpointing where at the moment. I need this girl in here," she glances at the door with the familiar latches, "dead to shake that sense of security. You're a good doctor, sweetheart. You heal people, and you've studied to give life to people. But you also have a gift. Tommy understands what his head will allow. Your mother _fears_ it," she continues, tone uncharacteristically soft, "but with me, you're free to love your darkness and let it love you back."

"Have you heard from my…dad?"

She means to ask of her mother too, but it never quite crosses her mind for many reasons.

Bonnie's mouth sets into a frown, deep lines etched into a forever youthful face. "I had a conversation with your dad a few days ago. He asked me about Jeffrey Todd," she begins, and sighs, shakes her head. She's the only one to refer to her brother by both names and he hates it. Always does. He never corrects her, though. "He doesn't want to know the how, and the why. Just that he's alive. The boy is fine. He's physically fine despite looking a little rough. When you're running, it comes with the territory. He's rather intense and insistent on _handling his business_. Something behind the eyes didn't sit right with me. He said it was too loud and begged me to turn the noise down or go."

"Noise?"

"Yeah. He…said his head hurt, and he needed to be quiet so he could think."

Diana narrows her eyes, "Think about what?" She recalls requesting his medical records and by virtue of being a blood relative, Genoa City Memorial fax them to her. She sifts through every medical thing, every mystery solved by appointments and maintained by specialists. Electrocuted with resulting skin burns and tachycardia managed by medication, according to his cardiologist.

"I…don't know."

Diana rubs her temple, teetering in between silent concern and a steady building annoyance. JT needs those beta blockers to steady his racing heart. He needs them. Diana seethes, while hoping the medication gets to that checkpoint toward the basement of that abandoned church on the edges of Twin Lakes.

"Did your guys make sure he got his medications?"

"Of course," Bonnie's face turns serious. She almost looks offended. "He's my nephew. Jeffrey Todd is already playing dead and the kid is good. I'm…impressed. Way too twisted for my taste, but the boy is talented. I have to admit. I don't need Tommy and Martha realized their kid is dead for real because his heart went screwy and stopped," she continues. "I volunteered to stash him away safe from that joke of a police department Genoa City has. He's way too close to Genoa City for my liking. He said he had unfinished business and I backed off. Tommy has to play the grieving father, and moved closer with Martha to DC to help out with DJ and Becca. You, however," Bonnie pins her with a glare, "are here to finish what Zack started… or end it. Matter of perspective, my dear."

There's the shadow of a smirk of many secrets on her lips.

A sex ring that collapses on itself digitally is not a concern of hers. Diana sees enough patients who carry the scars of sex work on their bodies and minds. She's detached enough to order a rape kit, refer a social worker, request the collaboration of a psychiatrist who puts the really suicidal ones in a 72-hour hold. The ones with the combination of stimulants and depressants coursing through the highways of veins and arteries beneath the skin are her favourite ones because they are already at the brink. Either they die or they slowly manage to live. This one, she recalls vividly. There's a fluttering at her swan like neck, stark contrast to the track marks in her arms. She slurs out a name. Three messy syllables. The carotid pulse right by the carotid artery races and her eyes are two green pools of vacancy. _Please, Doctor_, she whimpers, _kill me. Kill me. Kill me—_

She croaks out an apology to someone named Craig, says _Kimmie fucked up_ as coherently as she can. Then the seizing begins and Diana is reminded. She's in the white area. The white halls. The white lab coat. She's the protector today. _Do no harm_.

_**Soon,**_ the predator whispers. _**Soon**_.

Diana glares, and asks slowly to temper the anger, runs a hand through her blonde freshly cut bob.

"What does knowing whether my brother's alive or not have to do with Zack?"

"They don't," Bonnie answers, with a cool shrug. "Not directly. It was just your father confiding in me. He wanted to know how to deal with grief as a parent and whatnot. Suddenly, here I was, tracking this girl down until she was brought here kicking and screaming. All she did tell me was there was twenty dollars in payment involved and she said nothing else. I swear on Zack's soul, I almost snapped her jaw. If she wasn't going to use it to talk, then she didn't need to have it at all," Bonnie says, frustrated and huffs. She goes into the back pocket of her jeans, and brandishes a shiny, silver scalpel. "Your weapon of trade or the weapon of efficiency. It's up to you."

Diana takes the scalpel from her aunt's grasp, and examines it from handle to blade.

Her hazel eyes lock with Bonnie's. In her aunt's eyes, is a command. An order she _can't_ refuse.

In Diana's eyes comes the question: do it for Zack or yourself?

Bonnie reaches out, and touches her face with the back of hand.

"Take care of her, Diana," Bonnie orders softly, eyes hard like stone and as dark as black onyx. "Slit her throat if it helps you."

Diana breaks the stalemate first. She always breaks it first.

"I'm sorry, Zack was killed."

Bonnie's lips are in a tight line of tension while she exudes an air of calm Diana, for once, finds maddening. She sighs, lifting a shoulder with an off-handed shrug. "Thank you, but that boy knew the risks. He killed himself, babe."

—

The older woman walks away until she disappears, leaving Diana to open the underground door and the door to her own Wonderland as she does many times before. Diana feels her hand curl around the cool handle until her nail imprint half-moons into her palms. Still, she unlocks the latch that gives her access to another person until they are not much of person – or anything at all.

—

She closes the door behind her and a cool, darkened hand with smoke for fingers strokes her back to soothe her. The woman is quite stunning even with her clothes tinged with dirt, her pantyhose ripped and torn. Diana takes in her auburn coloured hair as it falls in her face. Long legs, high cheekbones, full lips – even as she lays in a heap on the ground. Her eyes spy the chain on the wall with the arm cuff. Diana realizes this girl is not tied. The other ones usually are. She spies the same track marks as that disoriented sex worker. She gasps and her eyes fly open, searching around until they land on her. Diana's mind works quickly, and she makes a decision, albeit it's a quick one but she's sure it's going to work. Her plans usually do.

She pockets the scalpel quickly, and finds medical concern.

"I don't… I don't know where I am," the young woman sobs, her face pale but cheeks flushed from crying. Her eye makeup makes her look like a raccoon with nowhere to go, and her eyeliner colours her tears dark as they track downward. Her voice hitches. "Please. I've been kidnapped. I don't know why I'm here. Can you help me? I was…at work…and then someone grabbed me…"

"Okay," Diana says, understanding in her tone. She softens it just so, dulls the edges, and gives the trap as much space as it can to constrict later. This woman has hope and anticipation. It's a glimmer in the eyes, a slight octave risen, a sharp intake of breath. Maybe a prayer or two uttered to a being she does not think exists. This girl is building into a tornado of hyperventilation so Diana soothes her as does many a patient. She puts her hands on both sides of her head, the urge to squeeze until it's a ruptured mess of brain matter, blood, bone, tissue. Those eyes are wide and trusting, as they lock on hers. She's listening to Diana's instruction to breathe and count when all she wants to do to gouge those eyes out with her thumbs. "Breathe in…. One, two, three… Breathe out… Four, five, six…"

She follows and Diana removes her hand to touch her wrist. There's a small tattoo etched in black.

Feathered wings.

Her pulse taps a rhythm against the pads of her thumbs.

"Good," the doctor says, soothingly and adds a charming smile. It's effortless and yet it's all a show. It's all a performance of bedside manner and compassion without the empathy. She glances around, and swears. Diana sighs. "I'm sorry you're here. What's your name?"

"You're sorry…for me?"

"Am I not supposed to be?"

"It's not this. It's…" she trails off. "Nothing."

She looks at Diana skeptically for a few minutes and then rubs her head with a grimace.

"My head is…pounding. Do we know each other? I just feel like I've seen you…"

She pretends to think and ponder it. Of course, she knows. Kimmie. Short for Kimberley.

_**Not yet, Diana. Not yet. **_

"I don't think we have," she answers, smoothly and extends her hand. "I'm Mary."

Kimberley glances at her extended hand, and then takes it. It's a soft, clammy handshake. Kimberley becomes aware of this, apologizes and takes her hand back. A blush crosses her face, and highlights her striking cheekbones and prominent nose with its smooth bridge.

"I'm…Kimberley. My hand is gross and sweaty. Sorry."

"No problem," Diana stands, and gives Kimberley room to roam. Diana bites a smile back behind her back, aware of this scalpel in her back pocket. A lamb to the slaughter. A lamb going out to pasture. This girl is a sheep with no mythical shepherd and does indeed walk in a dark valley. She scans the area of this room she has known to be her enclave of horrors. "I'm trying to figure out how we can get out of here," she laughs, shaking her head. "I wasn't intending on coming here, but the lady who lives here is a recluse. I'm so stupid. I come down here, thinking to clean this place up. Give it a new space and you're here. This job was a mistake. I just…wanted to help my sister, you know?"

A quiet sniffle. Her eyes well with tears and have no emotional context. Just a physiological reaction.

"Your…sister?"

"Yeah. Our parents weren't around much, and my sister fell into a bad situation with a…" Diana lets her throat thicken with renewed terror. A woman wrapped up in a shroud of desperation for a sibling that lives in that space between safety and danger. Diana lets Mary experience panic for herself, extends solidarity as a fellow hostage of the underbelly of society. Mary is a good person who finds herself in a twisted situation. Diana, she comes to herself while spinning this web of deception before going in for the literal kill. "I've said too much. My mouth does this – goes when my head screams at me to shut up. I just wanted her to be okay. I just want to make enough money to get her away from that damn sex ring. Now, I'm in here," she runs a hand through her hair and exhales. "I hate confined spaces."

Kimberley grows quiet, jaw set and gaze downward.

"I hate confined spaces too…which is why I got out, and I got some girls out…"

"How?"

"I can't say, Mary. Bad people are chasing me. If I say anything to anyone, I'm dead. All the girls I've helped, they're all at risk," Kimberley says, fear across her face. There's fear, hesitation and the tiniest bit of mistrust, but Diana will handle that like she does everything "Mary, if I could get your sister out, I would. If I could get in contact with the people, I would."

"I…understand. But I'm not going to betray your confidence. I'm in the same situation as you. I have nothing to gain. But I'd sleep easier if she was out. Even in here…" she whispers, heart thudding in her chest. Mary is a mess and doesn't know tomorrow. Diana is neat and ordered, awaiting when it's time. Her picture of tomorrow is clear. "I would feel better if I could help my sister out. If you know how, I would start and do whatever it took, whatever amount…"

Kimberley turns around from her, placing a hand on the wall to steady herself. Her hand runs along the wall with an upward glance before a loud clank makes her cry out and jump.

Diana gets away from the door herself and directs a questioning glance at the door. What is happening? What game does Bonnie have her playing? Is she controlling the chessboard or she is merely a piece being moved on it? She doesn't know what's happening to her but Diana can feel her mask cracking and her patience frayed at the edges.

"What the fuck was that?"

"I don't know," Diana says, honestly. She doesn't. "This place looks worn. Could be anything. A pipe above us. You understand why we both have to get out of here now. I have ten thousand dollars. Is that enough?"

"No, Mary. It isn't. These guys won't take less than twenty. I just hope it's enough to protect her."

"Who's…her?"

A beat. A curious yet surveying glance.

"I don't want to talk anymore. I'm sorry."

"I…understand."

From her periphery, Diana watches Kimberley let her back hit a wall before curling up, knees to her chin. The young woman heaves a shaky sigh and touches the tattoo on her wrist with a trembling hand, eyes becoming wet.

Screw the original plan. Time to amend it and cut a few steps out before the time passes her by.

The mouse has been toyed with by her claws long enough. It's time.

—

"You've reached Dr. Diana Hellstrom. Please leave me a message and I will return your call as soon as possible."

There's the beep. A sign of questions unsaid, its answers found and tucked away in a father's heart. It doesn't matter what is true and what isn't because he loves his little girl enough. Tom remembers Diana crying when she falls off her two wheeled bike and leaves her knees bloody even as JT skateboards alongside her to make sure she never falls again. Yet she's the little girl who wanders into his upstairs study with a copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky's _Crime and Punishment_. Diana doesn't want to be read to. It is she who wants to do the reading. A wary smile is on her face as if asking and he picks her up, and places her on his lap and she begins reading. Tom doesn't ask why she develops an interest in Crime and Punishment at 9 years old, just like he won't ask why his shovel is bent at the socket and the cutting edge is caked with dirt from the woods. He doesn't question it when he washes the shovel and the water is tinted red. He doesn't question Diana's eccentricities and detachment from the death of the Hodges family beagle. She's his baby, his youngest and only daughter and the girl who stays awake at night dancing on moonbeams. She dances farther and farther away from home and into a life of medicine and solitude in a mountainous region of New Hampshire.

Tom Hellstrom sighs, knowing that beep is coming and it's all that greets him these days. He takes strides out of where he secretly goes on one Wednesday every three months since it all unravels. If he's being honest, Tom knows it unravels long before he meets and marries Martha, long before having two children who are polar opposites but balances all parts of his soul. He knows this – this one thing – is a loose thread in a tapestry woven by hands strong has that break others because they are simply damaged themselves. Tom is not a perfect, not even a smart man despite a rewarding career in finance. Sometimes, he's not even sure he wakes up as a decent one either.

His father, Karl, is a celebrated police officer who protects and serves everyone but his own family. His mother, Mary, is a dutiful midwife with an iron will and a pretty tune ready to hum despite all of the emotional and physical hits she takes. From this union comes four children: Stephen, Tom, a stillborn baby brother christened Jeffrey and finally, and a daughter, Bonnie. Tom is the only one, he'd discover years later, to be the product of a rough marital rape roughly nine months before. Tom remembers the clap of his dad's hand flying across Mama's cheek, the way he stares at Bonnie the way a father shouldn't, and the way he undermines Stevie at every turn. But somehow, Tom feels the winds of domestic violence rattle his childhood more acutely, more intensely. _You shouldn't be here, boy, _his father would quietly sneer behind him as he grabs his arm with one hand and lets the other rest on the weapon holstered against his hip while in police uniform. _You shouldn't be a police officer, _Tom sneers back with all the venom his twelve year old self can muster.

Tom touches his head absentmindedly, tracing the indent of a scar he gets when his father goes into his blind rages and there's nothing behind his eyes. Just this force tearing the house empowered by alcohol and the stresses of his own job. PTSD, he's sure in today's context. He remembers his own head being hit against the coffee table, the sharp corner causing a gash. Tom recalls the sticky blood, Stevie punching Karl out to protect their mother and sleep off the alcohol, his mother's unusually shrill voice ordering Bonnie to get the first aid kit and medicine for headaches. He remembers his head pounding as Stevie helps him up the stairs into bed before going to sleep because it all hurts and he's so tired.

He sighs again, in the hospital waiting room.

"Hey, doodlebug," he begins, calling her the childhood nickname he crafts for her. It's for him mostly. Just to selfishly recall the baby girl who stops crying long enough to stare up at him with wide, bright yet observant eyes. Tom calls her that nickname to recall the little baby girl who sleeps in JT's lap as he rubs her back because he sees him and Martha do it. _Night-night, Alice, _he whispers gently and presses a light kiss to her head of blonde hair. Tom inhales, catching the light scent of medicine and sharp disinfectant. Hospitals are still so sterile. "It's Dad. You know, between your brother and mother I'm going gray a little," he emphasizes this by leaving a tiny space between his thumb and index finger, "faster than I'd like. Humor your old man and giving me a call back, day or night. Anytime," he chuckles. "You know how your mother's imagination is…" he trails off, and gets serious. "Please, Diana. I'm worried about you. Get back to me. I love you."

Tom hangs up and pockets his phone in the inner pocket of his coat before sitting down in a chair nearest to the exit and with easy access to the elevator. If there's a small chance he doesn't want to this again, he can always go and come back on another Wednesday in the next three months. There's a next time, always an even stream of blood donors ready to save life and be altruistic.

A registered nurse with purple scrubs comes bounding up towards this specific waiting room and stands at the opening. She glances at the file in her hands, stares at it for a few minutes and then locks eyes with him before her eyes breaks into an easy smile. She bounds over to him, dark ponytail of braids swinging with the gait of her bouncy walk. Her almond eyes are a shade of brown that sparkles under bright hospital lights. Tom can't still why these people look so happy to draw blood from people even if it is for his own reasons. Even if he realizes – and does for a while – that to save his children from a strict and rigid parent, he puts them in a structure free household. Maybe that's how they get here.

"Hi. Mr. Hellstrom. I'm Isobel," the nurse greets, standing in front of him. Tom stands and shakes her extended hand, firmly with a polite smile.

"Please. Call me Tom. I insist."

Isobel nods, "Alright. Tom it is."

The nurse nods for him to follow and he does.

"Your health history looks good. Any physical changes since you last donated three months ago?"

There are changes. Significant ones, ones that shift the puzzle pieces of his family members. One that leave him wandering when DJ will stop going from a little kid to a grown man to compensate for his father not being around. He's too young to have the light in his eyes disappear bit by bit. One that has Becca young enough to understand these winds picking up again, but sensitive enough to know her daddy is gone. Changes in the house of Hellstrom have Tom feeling responsible, a burden he has trained himself to bear. Tom knows Reed is on the verge of entering and seeing the world as a man but in some ways, is still a child. His grandson is one of the most empathic people he meets. He's creative, immensely talented in ways that make Tom nostalgic for his time on a theatre stage. How does he talk to a kid about to start the most important phases of his life when some unseen force presses a pause button for all of them? How does he make his grandson this when domestic abuse isn't a new concept, but something that lurks in the shadows and trickles down from one generation to the next? The talks with Mackenzie are the hardest, the most painful and when he carefully asks of Victoria, Mackenzie grows silent as her eyes well up with tears. He sees that even delicate balance of brokenness and strength in his mother many times.

Tom looks Isobel in the eye and tells the truth. No, there's nothing physically wrong with him. He eats as healthy as he can – well, he sleeps, exercises, takes walks, and much to Martha's chagrin trades things of finance for the freedom of writing a novel and a screenplay. There's a position at the community theatre open and retirement in his well-paying finance position is fine, but he will never retire from his first love of acting and its craft.

"No. No changes. You're all clear to tap into my veins."

"You have no idea how much O donors are needed," Isobel explains, setting up everything. A blood bag to hold his pint of blood. A sanitary needle. Iron-rich meal the night before and a filling breakfast with no eggs or bacon. A solid eight hours of sleep where Tom can control the barrier between his subconscious and reality when he's awake at 5am and presses a kiss to Martha's forehead before starting his day. Whatever that may be. It changes from day to day.

Isobel sits into a chair across from him as he does too. Tom knows how this process goes. The nurse busies herself with asking the right medical questions and setting him up for another round of blood donation.

"…O positive donors, like yourself, aren't universal as O negative, but it's so needed because the scope for an O positive blood types is almost as wide," Isobel explains, as she hooks the clear tube to the flat, empty blood bag ready to accept his pint. She rests his arm flat, helping him to roll up his sleeve. Isabel knows what to do and he feels fine in her capable hands. Tom almost shoots her a questioning glance because this nurse is far too happy to essentially tap his veins. "You're one of 37 percent of people who have this blood type, but it's the most common."

"Yeah? How so?"

A cool wipe of disinfectant is wiped in the crook of his elbow, over a bluish-purple vein underneath his skin. Ah. This one is always there. Part of him.

"For starters, O positive donors are the most important in that you can also donate your plasma and platelets. Platelets and plasma?" Isabel's face takes on a pensive glance, and she waves a gloved hand in a so-so motion. "A bit more tricky. Only O positive and O negative blood types can receive those."

Obedient and ready to give up what passes through it. This vein isn't like an aorta but it's reliant. What should he name this steadfast vein carrying blood with a type JT and Reed both have now? Mortimer. Perhaps Clarence. Albert after one of science's greatest minds. Ah, Tom thinks Alexander the Great Vein may be the moniker. He makes a fist, feels the tightness of the rubber tourniquet on his arm. Then there's coldness, a familiar pinch as Alexander the Great Vein gives up the goods.

"Wow," Tom says. "The body's biology is a mystery, it seems."

Isobel secures the needle, and the tube becomes crimson with his blood. It pushes its path to the bag and it's not clear anymore. In eight to ten minutes, it will be full.

"Yeah," Isobel looks up from his arm and grins. "It is, but you know," she shrugs. "All in a day's work figuring it all out. Doctors, nurses, even patients like you – we all work together to find what heals one person and what hurts the next."

Tom remembers the birth of his children, how different they are, how what hurts JT may not affect Diana. He thinks about the delicate balance he has to walk between his son and daughter when Martha simply wants to blur them. She loves one child freely, and doesn't understand the other. For the first time in decades, there's a slow building dissonance in his marriage. In eight to ten minutes, it takes this simmering resentment to boil over.

There are issues about the kids, the parenting styles, the differences in resolving issues with them, right down to letting JT host a quiet get together that turns into Billy Abbott left in the snowbank. Thank goodness for Raul Gutierrez – he's a good one, that kid. Tom and Martha are in the throes in grief that he feels is not genuine because no son to mourn. There's no wooden casket, no reason to travel to Genoa City after being gone for so long and thankfully, nothing that will make Tom dump a handful of dirt over a hole while saying goodbye. Martha argues that it's like death if she can't see him, can't know if their child is okay because he's on the run, or even know where he is before Victor Newman does. There are issues that Diana has, quirks that his daughter is bestowed with maybe because of genes, environment or both. It's wonderful to watch Diana's intellect grow, but it matures quicker than her social development. Diana is independent, powerful, and quick and sure in knowing what she wants. What she wants is to live and go to college in Nevada. University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus. Application is done with early acceptance without he or Martha ever knowing. Of course, there's Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, and even USC in California that come calling.

Diana ultimately wears the scarlet and grey University of Las Vegas sweatshirt around the house while Tom can see JT quietly seethe before he shrugs and leaves the house to go over to Raul's house, at the end of the cul-de-sac.

Bonnie lives in Las Vegas. Bonnie. His baby sister is his wife's trigger.

The one person to set Tom and Martha off for many reasons. Bonnie is one of many factors, the symptom of an ailment only brought to the fore.

"That's one way of lookin' at it."

Isobel does a check before she stands to go. "Any questions you have for me, Tom?"

"No," Tom shakes his head, and then adds genuinely. "I hope your parents are proud of you, Isobel."

Isobel stops, offers a smile and there's a glint in her eyes.

"I appreciate that. I'll be back in a few. No strenuous activity for the next or so. Just take it easy and relax in the meantime."

"Will do," Tom affirms and settles in the chair. He sighs again, glancing upwards and starts to hope even though he is not much of a praying man. The string of his mother's rosary is the most vivid in his mind, even when other people, other things push themselves through the sacred image. "Hope, Tommy. Just hope," he says quietly as a prayer, gold wedding band glinting back at him.

It takes eight to ten minutes – the same time it takes for him to sit here and save a life he will never know – for those winds to turn into tornadoes.

—

A scientific mind affords her the luxury of experimenting with what works, what can be amended and what has to be discarded when the original plan fails. There are three kinds of patients in life, Diana observes after all these years in medicine. It's a typology she hones over the years by virtue of being observant and it never fails. The first kind of patient has hope against grim, terminal diagnoses, always unfailing until medicine snatches it. The second type of patient demands the diagnosis be as blunt and raw as possible – no sugarcoating, no hand-holding, no fluff behind the diagnosis. Spare the medical jargon. That is universal. The last kind of patients are the interesting ones. Diana's favourite in truth. They accept the possibilities of life if medicine says that is the case. They welcome death if those are the cards dealt. She makes those ones comfortable., instructs the nurses to every need the patient and their family have.

Diana's eyes scan through many medical directives, countless times where Do Not Resuscitate go from words on a form to the reality of what is coming.

There's the occasional lapse into a comatose state after surgery, the drop in blood pressure, a blood hemorrhage that can't be stopped even, a heart stopping and at the end of it all, the sound. A life is gone. It's long enough for Diana to hear the silent congratulations just for her. Nevertheless, she remains the one with the white shroud. She has the most power in the room and yet she's subject to the whims of the body's anatomy. It's only the same routine. The time of death is called. The nurses clear out when she instructs them with an even tone of authority and human sensitivity to notify the family of the news.

Six times Diana recalls this process. It's vivid because she makes it so. She doesn't detach herself as with most patients. No, these ones are her prizes. Her accomplishments. Her six plans with ingenuity and logic with the tiniest bit of slight of hand. It's intricate and fills her with a sense of completion, but it's false because the compulsion is never over. It's never gone. Diana will always want more and it's never enough. The high those six times is not euphoric. It's the rush of cocaine without snorting it, the high of heroin without not one needle to the vein, and orgasmic without the sex.

Diana remembers glancing down at the bodies, each cold to the touch and already hard with rigor mortis. Rigor mortis settles into the crevices of this new husk. The colour gone from the skin. Nails darkening. She can't recall their faces, but can recall how each one flatlines on her surgical table under the bright lines. There's grief, pain and devastation down the hall to the right and will be more in the morgue but it's just a silent kind of gratitude for her. Gratitude for the privilege of life, to watch it literally and figuratively leave. There's a kind of gratitude Diana has for this soul – even there is even a concept of such – escape its shelter.

However, with all experiments, there's the independent variable that causes the dependent one and vice versa. Every now and then, there's the extraneous variable. It changes the outcome originally planned. If Kimberley tells _Mary_ what she needs to know, then she dies. The extraneous variable appears in the form of Kimberley fighting her in her semi-drugged condition. She's scrappy. She's sharp and Diana, in hindsight, knows there's a shift between the dynamic.

Mary doesn't know her way around this place and fears it. She doesn't understand the part of the house and can't undo and twist the latches and locks to freedom. She is a desperate woman, desperate to help a sibling in trouble. Now, Diana is desperate. Desperate to satisfy the craving, satisfying her compulsion, and nursing it the way she would a broken bone, a bruise she co-exists with. It's like a child she loves.

She's impressed.

The noise against is discovered to be a gun. A semi-automatic. She leaves it be.

_Not today._

Kimberley fights with a frantic movement that is purposeful. The hit to Diana's lip leaves her surprised, not because of the physical hit itself but because the others don't fight her. The six can't. The other three while travelling abroad before medical school don't know who they fight. Etienne Bordeaux is her last, slitting his throat open discreetly while on the floor of a Paris nightclub. A perfect stranger. Diana doesn't forget his dark brown eyes, chiseled jaw and charm despite his attempt at English. It's easy when everyone's drunk, high, dancing or all of the above. Or, revel in the loss of their inhibitions they seem not to pay attention to the man clutching at his throat as the blood seeps through his fingers and he gurgles for breath.

Diana runs her tongue over her lip, aware of the sting and metallic taste of her own blood. She wipes the bleeding cut with a thumb and throws the scalpel through the open door before shutting it. It lands with a distant sharp clink. Hopefully, somehere in Bonnie's carotid artery. She grins at the heap of legs and hair and disheveled clothes. More so than when she lands here. Strangled sobs. Laboured breathings. That's the sign of broken ribs. A collapsed lung. Kimberley wheezes, spitting up blood that splatters on the ground.

Diana sighs, and painfully kicks Kimberley in the abdomen hard enough to hopefully cause internal bleeding that can't be fixed. Then does it again just to hear what it sounds like to hear a person break from the inside out.

Kimberley screams this time, and there's something about the anguish of the sound.

It sounds like a howl, a broken bark and a lingering whimper. In this room of blood, and broken bones, she hears that dying beagle. The howling shatters her world of Camelot, of old Russia where Tolstoy's characters love, live, lose, and eventually, die. The Hodges' family pet creates ripples in her imaginary conversations with Nietzsche, Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. The Hodges' beagle barks incessantly and muddies the pool of vapid pop culture Diana likes to stick her toe into every now and again.

"You're impressive. Stubborn. Fiery. It's admirable. The others…don't behave like you," Diana observes as if looking through a microscope and seeing this woman as a culmination of many moving emotional and psychological parts. Her family, who she loves, who loves her back just as much. She crouches down, strokes her unbloodied cheek before turning her roughly on her back. Her tone is measured, icy. "You're going to tell me the name of the girl you shoved to Canada before you choke on your blood."

Kimberley's eyes are wide. Two pools of green moss. Diana eyes her throat, and develops a curiosity about her windpipe, and how it would feel to step on it with gradual pressure until it breaks.

"You're going to tell me… The name of the girl you squirreled away… across the border. Or, Craig dies."

"Don't…"

"You're under a deadline, _Kimmie_. You're smart. Don't force my hand… well, my foot."

Diana kicks Kimberley in the lower abdomen one last time, and then presses the sole of her boot against the young woman's throat and yes, she finds the windpipe. She hears the frantic gasps for air. It's quiet, but all she needs for Bonnie to let her go back to New Hampshire to live her quiet, unassuming life.

Finally, Kimberley wheezes out a name in a strangled whisper.

"Thank you," Diana says, with a smirk and brings her foot down on Kimberley's throat. The crack is loud, final and as she watches the light behind this girl's eyes go out, satisfying.

—

Diana opens the door and Bonnie comes in, glancing at the body and then her.

"You got really creative."

She doesn't want to be down here. Not ever again.

"She's dead. She had internal damage that would have killed her anyway. Broken ribs and a collapsed lung that would have resulted in a chest infection that also would have caused her death," Diana replies. It's another expired patient, a cadaver that has been created for another cause. It's not one important to her, but a cause nonetheless. "I'd recommended you have her dismembered in a separate location from here. Cut her up in the smallest pieces possible and scattered in the Mojave Desert. If all fails, I'd seriously consider taking a layer of the wall here and sealing her into it," she adds, brushing Bonnie's hand away from her lip. Diana laughs. "You didn't count on this one being as combative, did you?"

Bonnie folds her arms, pining her with a glance between worry and being thankful she finishes the job. Diana can still hear the sharp sound the scalpel makes. She breezes past her aunt and continues toward the labyrinth that is part of her life since the age of sixteen.

"Give me the name, Diana."

Diana stops mid-step and turns around, brushing her blonde hair back.

"Of course," she relents, bending to pick up the scalpel. In one swift motion, she pins Bonnie to a wall, the silver blade at her throat. She presses at the little fluttering pulse. With a little pressure, a little incision is made and a thin line of blood wells as Bonnie takes a sharp intake of breath. "Let's make a wager, shall we? I'll tell you this name who had me kill for, and you never call me _down here_ again."

"Diana, you're my family. My blood," she hisses, "but this will not end well for you. Drop it."

"Slitting someone's throat_ is_ enjoyable to me. Thank you for awakening that in me. But if you call me over here for anything over than a loving niece visiting her aunt, and I'll hurt you. Promise me you won't call me over here to kill anybody ever again. It's my compulsion. My quirk… it's mine. No one else's, not even _yours_," Diana says, grip on the scalpel tightening. "Say the words before I give you the name of _your_ next victim."

Bonnie winces in anger but relents and grounds out the words.

"Okay. I promise. Back. Off."

Diana hands her the scalpel in a show of good faith and Bonnie nods, accepting it. She smirks, as Bonnie touches the cut to her neck, staining her fingertips a light red. It's not dark blood, therefore, it's not deep. It doesn't need stitches. It should heal underneath a nice scarf.

"Crystal Porter."

"Who?"

"Crystal Porter," she repeats, as her aunt grows silent. "Does that name mean anything to you?"

A beat passes, and there's a storm in her aunt's eyes.

She laughs, a little maniacally, and then curses loudly. "That's who…" she trails off, and swears and looks at her. "That name is more than a name to me," she says, and tilts her head towards the end, and the way to climb her way to the top. "I'll handle this one myself. Go home. Call your parents and go look out for Reed," she turns threatening and Diana almost rolls her eyes. Bonnie is scared of a lot of things underneath her bravado and the reputation of murder and mayhem that precedes her. Bonnie tucks a lock of Diana's hair behind her ear, gentle as a mother should but sounds as dangerous as any monster in the dark. Well, dangerous to others. Not her. "You pull a stunt like that again, and I'll make you pay for it."

"No, you won't," Diana rebuts, with a knowing grin. "Because I scared you. I _still _scare you. You admire that. For Owen's sake, you won't do anything. You love your son too much. Are we even?"

A sharp, narrow-eyed meets gaze meets hers. "We're even, Diana Alice."

—

"No, I'm not avoiding you, Mom…"

Diana slides the room keycard to her Vegas motel room, and lets the door close behind her. She slides off her boots, and allows her feet to be brushed by the beige carpet. She keeps her iPhone X pressed against her ear while coming out of her black shirt, one sleeve at a time while her mother rambles. Well, more unloads on her than talks. Diana sighs, taking the phone away from her ear momentarily to pull her shirt over her head. She throws it over a couch and tunes back into her mother, slowly pacing the length of the room in just her jeans and a lace bra.

"Well, I don't know what you want from me. I called Dad. He's fine. I told him, I'm fine."

She's still Doodlebug. Diana is still struck by that. Touched. Dad's the only one to touch some part of her.

"Why didn't _you_ tell me you were fine?"

"I don't know," Diana collapses backwards into her plush, hotel bed. "Maybe because I've been in a room of other doctors for most of the day, taking in research at this conference."

"Right," her mother says, tone clipped. "You didn't visit your aunt once?"

Diana rolls her eyes, annoyance in her chest. "You had to know I would. I was raised here. My alma mater is here. I wasn't going to land in Vegas and not go. I don't know what you're asking of me. Are you asking to choose between you and Bonnie?"

"That's not…" she starts and then says more firmly and clears her throat. "You know what? I take it back. Yeah, I'm asking you to choose. Sweetheart, I'm sorry, but I'm your mother. I think I've earned the right to ask that of you."

"It's a huge ask. You know this."

"Yes, I do. It will make you resent me more than you already do, but here we are."

Diana wanders over to the bar area, grabs a crystal tumbler and pours herself a whiskey. She doesn't care about the sting the alcohol will cause her lip. If anything, it should be sanitized. Halfway up the short glass she stops, and puts the stopper back in the bottle. Her eyes flicker outside, the Las Vegas strip just opening up with its lights, grand fountains shooting water into air with precise synchronism and sounds that cause sensory overload with anyone, but in her, intrigue.

"Thank you for being honest," Diana says after a moment's silence, nursing her drink. She takes a sip, and winces from the sharp sting in her lip and the slow burning fire in her throat when she swallows. Its warmth settles in the quick pauses between her heartbeats, in her veins and burns up her to her head like a steady flame on the end of a candle. The warmth grows white hot steadily and the faintest shade of vermilion red just starts to colour Diana's peripheral vision. Another sip. Another slow burning inferno, "but I'm going to be honest in answering that because you and dad fought over how your differing parenting styles shaped both JT and me into the people we are. This is bigger than you, Mom, and if you can't see that then I don't know what to tell you. I'm not invalidating whatever issues you have with Bonnie partly because I don't understand them, but don't make her the scapegoat."

"Excuse me? Different parenting styles?"

Diana lifts in a bare shoulder in a shrug, sitting on the bed, legs casually swinging over the edge.

"I was Dad's favourite. JT was yours. I'm not mad or anything because the both of us did it too. We just related to one parent better than the other. It didn't mean I didn't love you any less, or JT's love for Dad didn't diminish. It was just the status quo," Diana explains, as honestly as she can. She's too selfish to disclose the rest. "It's how it was in the house until I didn't feel like I could breathe in Genoa City anymore. I was either JT's little sister, or Martha and Tom's daughter."

"That's not true."

"Really?" Diana questions, with a raised brow. "Why did one of your friends call me Deidra? How do you make the leap from Diana to Deidra? Dad's finance friends were always trying to talk me into dancing with their sons at these parties. He liked that I rebuffed them."

"And you're still rebuffing men…" she heard Martha mutter and for the first time in a while, has a genuine laugh come out of her because something happens here. A breakthrough. With every child JT has, there's always the question of when her time for parenthood will come. With every year of marriage that passes between her parents, there's always the subtle jab at her unmarried status or her father never knowing what it is like to walk a daughter down the aisle. She laughs, and can't quite stop it.

"See? This is what I mean. Your honesty is wonderful, Mom. I'm childless and unmarried."

"I didn't mean that…"

"Yes, you did!" Diana replies with a snap, angrily. "You didn't parent JT, didn't parent me… or maybe you parented him a little better. I figured out what life was for _me_. I went to medical school and still, don't know. I'll give Dad A for effort but he didn't exactly do any of the heavy lifting. But he was there. JT peaked in high school and has been spiraling ever since. Now, he's not as dead as people think and he's out there. I'm unmarried by choice. I don't have children because I have no business bringing a child into the world. I don't want that," she feigns a sarcastic kind of surprise. "There are people who don't want to live their lives pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, Mom. Surprise! I donated my eggs anonymously in my 20s. That's the closest you'll ever get to knowing you have biological grandchildren from me out there in the world," she confesses smiling against the glass, downing the rest of her drink in one gulp. "There are women who are infertile and can't have children. Why not give what I have to someone else if I'm not going to use them? I didn't exactly have the best role model for motherhood."

"Diana Alice Hellstrom," her mother says, in a quiet kind of heartbreak. "Diana…" she repeats, voice catching. "You hate me this much? Well, it's what distance that had me watch you as lure Brittany's dog. It's that distance that had me watch you go into the shed to get Dad's shovel," her mother's voice steadily increases and leaves her momentarily stunned. No, no, no. "I watched you lure that dog into the woods…"

"Until it went quiet."

There's the idea that people who kill satisfy their need to end an animal life before trying out on human beings? Is that she thinks? Of course, she does. Too much true crime documentary and Dateline informs her mother's narrative when it's much simple than that.

"You think I killed that dog because I was bored, don't you?"

"Am I wrong?"

Diana pulls her legs into a crossed legged position, finding her level of comfort.

"Yes. I killed that dog because I was doing homework and it was too loud," she ponders, tapping her chin for a brief moment. Now, it makes sense.

Diana understands why the emotional chasm is there between mother and daughter when it's so effortless to throw herself into every and all things Jeffrey Todd Hellstrom. She isn't afflicted with some kind of deep seeded sibling related envy, and not even throwing a tantrum because of mommy issues. Every aspect of her life is planned and controlled. It is constructed that one from a young age.

The dog is a means to an end. Not an exploration into the closed doors of her psyche when she's familiar with what lies on the other side.

"You think I killed that dog because I quietly snapped. You're scared of me."

"That's not the case, and you know that."

"For once, I don't," Diana heaves a sigh, "but it doesn't matter because you can't connect with something you fear. Nobody can understand something that scares them. That's why I asked to live with Bonnie, and Dad didn't fight it. Neither did you," a wry smile falls on her lips, "because it meant you didn't have to think about all the therapy you'd put me in or all of the ways you could use pills to fix me. Ironic since I work with pills all the time…"

Her mother sighs on the other end, "I want to understand you. All of you, but it won't happen."

"I want you to understand… all of me, but you're not ready for it. Glad we had this talk. I'm tired. Contrary to popular belief, I'm too exhausted to haunt the strip. Goodbye, Mom—"

"Wait."

That one word sounds like a thunder clap in Diana's ears.

"What is it?"

Martha says firmly, "I don't know where we stand right now. All I know is that I have loved you since I found out I was pregnant with you," he voice catches, "but I will not go one day without knowing where your brother is. Tell me right now, young lady. I need to know where my boy is." And there's the thunder bolt that just about grazes some part of her.

"No," Diana throws back, defiantly. "The less you know, the better."

"That's not up to you. I'm his mother, and if I have to _kill_ to get to my son, I will," Martha says finally. "Goodbye, Diana. I love you."

Her mother hangs up, leaving Diana with a dull ache in her head and a tension that builds again. Her eyes land on that empty glass with a few lingering amber drops of liquor. She uncrosses her legs after letting her phone sink in the folds of her hotel bed. She wanders over to pick up the short glass, turns it to look at all the places light can hide and make itself known.

She hovers the glass over the coffee table, centerpiece a bunch of beautifully placed different coloured flowers. It's plastic because there's no sweet aroma real ones give off. A dark purple calla lily. A daisy. Dark red roses. Light rose organza flowers with a saffron yellow center when it can be gold under Vegas lights. Diana smiles wistfully at the idea that she can make glitter while giving off the illusion that there's gold beneath. Isn't that what optimists do? Optimism doesn't mean you're always walking along positivity and good vibes. It means people are foolish enough to think the monsters that lurk underneath beds and stays in the shadows of closets are really not there.

Bringing the glass to eye level, Diana lets the glass slip from her grasp over the table with the fake flowers. It crashes in an explosion of jagged, glittering glass masquerading as fairy dust and magic fools chase up and down the strip.

"Idiots trapped in fallacy," she remarks to no one. A piece of glass shimmers brighter than the rest and she picks it up. The edges are jagged, the shape curved even as it rests in her palm. "How… amusing."

She undoes her jeans, stepping out of them with ease and revealing matching black underwear. Diana turns the cool piece of glass over in her hand with sharp dexterity as she goes into a drawer and slips on a long, satin black robe that feels like a second skin. She ties her robe across her body, wanting a bubble bath after a long, productive day.

Her hazel eyes turn over the piece of glass with all the ridges etched into it.

A curiosity inside of her is piqued as Diana wonders how blood fits just so in the carved ridges, instead of the streams of hotel lights or neon coloured casino ones.

Then just like that, Diana is reminded she has another role to play.

Aunt.

Her phone vibrates on the bed and her nephew's face comes up on the screen.

Diana never gets over the fact that Reed is a paradox of emotions: happy and simmering in rage no one knows the extent of, a man and child-like and in blue eyes, not like his father – it must be from his mother because Victoria Newman _is_ a striking woman – lies a delicate balance between cautious optimism and a disillusionment she finds refreshing, truthfully. Disillusionment doesn't mean misery. It means unbound honesty that has the power to heal, destroy or both.

Reed is like just this piece of glass. Smooth, yet surrounded by edges that she hopes sharpens over time. The corner of her lips quirk upwards as she slides her finger to answer.

"Hey, Reed."

"Hey, Aunt Diana," he replies, tentatively. "I understand it could be a bad time but… can we…talk?"

"Take time out of my day to talk to you?" Diana replies, as she drags the pad of her thumb over the longest edge of this jagged glass. There's a sting, an orgasmic release of euphoria and a thin line of red that appears over the ridges of her thumbprint. Ah, success. She grins, from ear to ear. "Always. So, let's talk, Reed..."


End file.
